According to the article in the March issue of Magic on this new line, Loughran mentioned items selling about $100, but not clear if this is for each or for all four. Howard of The Trickery mentioned $50 per item in his blog.

Taking on this project is a major investment so good luck Tenyo Elite.

Tony Curtis

Do we have a release date yet???

GeorgeG said; "Howard of The Trickery mentioned $50 per item in his blog".

Thanks for the information George, most appreciated. So you know, this Howard person has no involvement with JPS MAGIC STUDIOS LTD or Tenyo Elite and has no clue as to what we are really doing nor our prices. I'm surprised he would give out such faulty information but I guess that's what blogs are for.
What you read in MAGIC Magazine would be more accurate since the author actually interviewed us for the story.

Having said that, we are hoping to have the first four available within the next couple of months. We are taking each step very carefully to insure that the quality is kept up to our high standards and that Tenyo Elite will live up to its name.

Thanks so much for your patience and understanding.

Still no word on price yet?

Any update?

They're probably still calculating...

Still calculating? Well, pretty much that is what we are in the process (among other things) of doing at the moment. We appreciate all the interest and especially everyone being patient and understanding.

This is a large project and we want everything to be just right. That said, again we will have some of these available in the near future and look forward to the final pieces ourselves.

Great to hear - and: nobody's is rushing you as long as the result is as good as expected. We all want a well made product (and such takes time).
Yippieh!

It's a no-brainer that the delayed pricing is due to the producers' sussing the market for perceived interest. This is normal business practice. It also makes sense, for obvious reasons, for the producers not to let on that this is what's happening.

alannasser, not to sound rude - but I don't recall your presence when Jason, Peter and I started this project over two years ago - perhaps I missed something (anything is possible).

As to your suggestion that we are testing the market for so-called perceived interest - that is not the case at all. The products are after all T E N Y O - that says it all. We knew there would be a great interest even before we approached the Japanese, so enough about that.

People have been (and rightly so) wondering about the final prices - well, since we haven't finished with everything we HONESTLY do not know yet. There is much to take into consideration with the Elite line, much of which only those of us involved with the project actually have information about.

Thanks again to everyone for your continued interest and patience for all things Tenyo Elite.

For what it's worth - I have had several people tell me that these items will cost $100. Each was "sure" they had heard that somewhere.

Just letting you know what the public perception is. No idea where it is coming from. But that's the buzz on the street.

Please, if the pricing part could sorted out soon . . . can't wait to grab my Tenyo Elite Blue Crystal.

I liked the selection of the color combination on the Elite version of Blue Crystal. Basically the colors have been reversed and the light blue color has been replaced by a darker shade of blue. I feel this color combination (inner dark blue border) will give a much better & enhanced perception of depth (illusion effect) as compared to the original version released by Tenyo. I must say it was good thinking on the part of the Tenyo Elite Team.

Still nothing on pricing. Am I missing something?

Actaully, back on August 8th I posted an update in the Release date update thread in this very forum.

That said, for those of you who missed reading that topic I will repost a copy here:

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Hello all:

I wanted to give you an update regarding our Tenyo Elite line. On behalf of my partners Jason Palter and Peter Loughran, I am proud to say that our first two Tenyo Elite releases (Fortune Sticks and Moonspinner) are officially in production and being manufactured as I write this letter. Our other two products (Blue Crystal and Soft Coins) will follow in a couple of months---to ensure that all our 2009 releases are out before the end of the year.

READ: Fortune Sticks and Moonspinner should be ready for sale by the end of September!!!!

We want to thank everyone for their incredible enthusiasm and for their patience and understanding during the past few months.

The delays were so frustrating, and yet also were to be expected with a project of this magnitude. As most of you know our goal is to truly create an "Elite" line of Tenyo tricks, and as a result this in itself brings forth many challenges.

One of these obstacles was to ensure that we were going to be able to produce a high-level of quality. One of the many reasons for the delays in releasing these tricks was due to the fact that we were having trouble finding a manufacturer that could make items to the quality standards we were demanding, but yet allow us to then sell them at a reasonable price. Add to that the fact that initially we are having a very small number made (yes, supplies will be limited) until we see how well these are received. Most manufacturer's here in north America demand extremely large numbers to be ran so that made things tough as well.

The latest is that we have finally found a company that we are very happy using here in North America, and at a cost that was acceptable to us. While we are getting a very nice product and quality that we know everyone will be very pleased with, it means that our costs are much, much higher.

As it stands now, these first two tricks will sell for the retail price of $100.00 USD each. It is possible that the latter two tricks may be slightly higher than that due to their mechanical construction, we don't know yet.

So as everyone knows, with every force that occurs in the universe there is always something that has to "give" or be "pushed" as an opposite reactionary force.

What has now happened is that due to these increased costs on the products from our manufacturer (again, to ensure that we get a great and "elite" quality product for you our buyers), we will not be able to meet our initial plan of selling the tricks through the various magic shops and dealers. Because of the normal markeup that occurs between distributors and dealers the final retail price would no doubt keep these items out of the hands of the average magician and that simply was not acceptable to us.

Understand that while we knew the price on Tenyo Elite would not be cheap, we still wanted everyone to have the opportunity to own one. We did not want to price these tricks out of the range of the average user

At the end of the day, in any business, who is the one that TRULY matters? That's right, the consumer; because it is they who will buy the products and have to be happy. They don't care where they get it, as long as they get a good product and service with a fair retail price. We want our customers to be happy and we are happy to be able to finally meet that goal.

Having said all that, in order to keep the price reasonable (and still maintain quality) we will be selling these products direct from our official site, www.tenyoelite.com. We trust that dealers and consumers alike can understand our position and why we have had to do this-----it is simply economics! Perhaps in the future this will change, but for now that is the only way this will work for us.

Peter, Jason and I have a huge amount of experience in direct sales and shipping products such as Tenyo Elite, and already have laid out a bit of an "infrastructure" to meet with our projected demand. We therefore will be ready to sell these when we receive the first 2 products from our manufacturer at the end of September.

We will be accepting Paypal (which you just need a credit card; it is very easy and free to use by the way!), as well as other forms of payment.

We will continue to keep you up-to-date on our official site, on our Facebook page, our MySpace page, our Twitter Page, our YouTube, the Magic Café, and on other various forums online.

In addition we will be sending news and updates through emails to those of you on our mailing list. And by the way, if you haven't joined our mailing list yet but are interested in being amongst the first to know about updates and product information, please go and join right now!

Thank you all for your time and understanding on this. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Have a great day!

HEAD OFFICE:

JPS Magic Studios Ltd.
85 Cedarcrest Crescent
Richmond Hill, Ontario L4S 2P4
CANADA
Email: info@tenyoelite.com
www.tenyoelite.com
Phone: (416) 410-5766

$99.00? Are you kidding?

To cfleming and anyone else who may have missed my post Here!, I will repost for your benefit.

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To those who think the prices are too high, I wish you only the best using the tried and true plastic versions (if you can even find them to purchase) that Tenyo has produced over the years. Both versions will produce a great illusion for your audience. After all, some folks use plastic cups, others use Paul Fox, Johnson, etc.

For anyone who missed the article about Tenyo Elite that appeared in MAGIC magazine or haven't been following our progress, I will attempt to give you a very brief explanation in what we have been going thru at JPS Magic Studios Ltd. in bringing the Elite line into the hands of magicians.

You must first understood manufacturing here in the United States and Canada (or most places for that matter) in order to have a better understanding in regards to the higher priced Tenyo Elite line of tricks.

Tenyo Elite is being made under an exclusive license granted to JPS Magic Studios Ltd. from Tenyo of Japan. Tenyo of Japan has no financial involvement with the project whatsoever - none. Therefor the full burden of prototyping, manufacturing, packaging, promoting, etc rests soley on the shoulders of JPS Magic Studios of Canada.

For the record, Tenyo of Japan has primarily provided their blessing for the Elite project and samples of their various Tenyo items. They have also been very helpful in our endeavor by providing advice, suggestions, historical information, etc.

Now, because there are no actual blueprints or schematics of any kind available for the original plastic Tenyo tricks, each trick produced for the Elite line has been designed by literally backwards engineering the original tricks (i.e, taking each trick apart piece by piece and figuring out how it works).

In addition, making something out of plastic using an injection mold is one thing - making parts and tooling out of metals (Heavy gauge aluminum, brass, etc) is quite another. Add in custom laser etching and anodization and the prices really begin to soar. Did I mention the cool cases or bags which hold each Elte trick? Also, because we are not able to have thousands upon thousands made at any given time (i.e, we are having very small numbers ran) the manufacturing process alone is extremely expensive.

Even the cool black boxes which hold each Tenyo Elite trick have been custom designed and manufactured for us. The Elite manuals themselves are not the simple single sheet instructions one is accustomed to finding in your typical tenyo box.

Each Elite manual contains very good instructions and routines with photo illustrations printed on high gloss stock. Each instruction manual includes instructions written in both English and Japanese. Translation costs alone were enormous.

Friends, these are not your fathers Tenyo tricks. While they are not indestructable, they should last you a lifetime if cared for properly. The difference in quality can best be appreciated by holding one in your hand. The only true analogy I can think of would be to compare a cheap plastic Bill Tube to a nice heavy brass model and even that example really does not do these pieces the justice they deserve.

To sum it all up - no expense has been spared to insure that the Elite line is everything all of us had always wished the original Tenyo tricks could be.

The three of us have spent the better part of three years and thousands of dollars in the developement of the Tenyo Elite line of tricks - nothing has been rushed to market.

We are proud of what we are doing and make no apologies. If prices on materials, manufacturing and other services would have been less then we would have not only passed the savings on to our customers but would be shipping these tricks to dealers. To keep the retail costs as reasonable as possible we are only selling these directly from our website.

As it stands, you are getting a great product at the best price possible. If this places the Elite line out of the budgets of some, we certainly understand.

Hope this helps explain things a little better.

"Hope this helps explain things a little better."

Not that you need to. I will either buy or not, my choice. What it needs to sell for, your choice! I wish you lots of success, these look like really great quality!

Jim

mandarin - Thanks for the positive imput!

Only $99 dollars for a great effect that will last a lifetime, that I will not be embarrased pulling out of my close-up box? Something etched and not made with a sticker that peels, gets dirty and looks homemade?

Only $99 for an effect that will last a lifetime, with a nifty box for woo-woo and something even a few old timers in the audience might even remember buying at the trick shop, even if they weren't "real" magicians, therefore, building rapport and good will?

Only $99 dollars? You gotta be kidding me... I would have paid more Steve... Glad I ordered before you sell out here...

Richard