Just give him back his box of tricks.
That’s what Chatham’s Marien Hopman is asking to the person who broke into his red Jeep Grand Cherokee in the driveway of his Queen Street home Thursday night.
Hopman, a local magician, said the box contained a wealth of items that are priceless to him, but all but worthless to anyone else.
Missing, along with a quantity of cash and other items, is a small box, about half the size of a shoebox, that contained antique magic props. In the black and silver case were wooden cigars, American money tricks, chains, rings, silk handkerchiefs, strings, and numerous decks of playing cards. Gone are sponge rabbits and sponge balls as well.
“They’re probably going to throw it in the garbage,” he said. “They took all my cards. There were about half a dozen decks.”
But one man’s junk in this case is a magician’s treasure.
Hopman just wants the stolen items back. He is asking the thief to leave the items at his side door, and said there would be no questions asked and no charges laid.
He said some items are irreplaceable such as the wooden cigars, tools he uses in manipulation tricks.
“The wooden cigars, you can’t get them anymore. The guy who made them retired. They look so real,” he said.
Hopman said all items that were stolen in the box are for close-up magic. He keeps the box in his vehicle for times when he is at a social event and someone asks for him to show a trick or two to a friend.
“If I walk into a place and someone asks if we could do a couple of tricks, I’d walk back out to my car and get the box. There’s two hours worth of magic in there,” he said. “This stuff you can’t buy anymore.”
