Wednesday

Tried to work the market but got rained out. Buster came with me and he went to visit Brian Masters at the Phoenix Rising Gallery where he works.


Buster & Brian


Glass Art Jelly Fish


Don't Ask


Balls

In the early evening I got a call from a fellow named Jake who is the VP of Rings 'n Things II. We talked for an hour about cups and balls. He generously offered to trade a set of his Stainless Monti Cups for a set of Phoenix Cups. How cool is that! This dude knows his cups and we discussed the possibility of offering the magic community a limited run of Phoenix Cups in Stainless Steel! I get a hard on just thinking about it.

What will be most gratifying is the opportunity to fix the design flaws that I duplicated when I reproduced the Charlie Miller Cups.

Earlier in the week I posted of the passing of Jay Marshall. I'll never forget buying my fist set of Charlie Miller Cups from him when I was 14 years old. Incidentally, the first cups I ever owned were a set of aluminum Rings 'n Things Cups.

Back to Jay Marshall; I was looking at the Miller cups in his booth at the Magi-Fest, he grabbed the cup out of my hand threw it against the wall, it bounced on to the floor. He exclaimed, "Now that's a man's cup!"

At that same convention, I was eating breakfast at the hotel restaurant and Jay was sitting a few tables away. He must have sensed that I was watching him as he read the morning paper. Somehow with proper misdirection he had taken his shoe off and put it on his plate, he closed his paper and with a great disgusted reaction noticed the shoe on his plate. I'll never forget that, I laughed out loud. He just went on about his business as though this was somehow normal. He was quite a guy and I was lucky enough to see him do his act at least a dozen times.

Our last interaction was at the SAM National in Cincinnati. We had drinks at the bar and I showed him the Cups I had manufactured. He looked at me with contempt and said, "You knocked off my cups!" I had to remind him of our previous discussion when he gave me permission to make the cups. The origional idea, was that If I could make the cups cost effective that he would buy them all and continue to sell them as his own. He threw me for a loop when he said point blank that he had no interest in them at all. It was then, that the whole T. Frank Mint and Phoenix Cups and Balls thing came to be.