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Cannon’s Great Escapes to Shutter

We received some very disappointing news from Inside Magic Favorites Mark and Shelia Cannon, owners of our favorite place to shop for escape gear. Mark Cannon has brought fear and exhilaration to the plaque encrusted and otherwise jaded hearts of magicians and laity worldwide.

The good news: Mark and Shelia Cannon will continue to perform.

The bad news: Cannon’s Great Escapes will vanish forever at the end of this month. (Remember that June has only 30 days when calculating your cash flow / opportunity cost ratios).

The good news (for them): by closing the shop, Shelia will be able to focus on her work as a vacation specialist.

The good news (for Shelia’s clients): Mark and Shelia Cannon have performed almost everywhere on this allegedly round planet. They know the good, the bad, and the poorly maintained villas and outposts. Armed with this knowledge, Shelia can guide her clients to an enjoyable respite and avoid the traps set for those booking with less-experienced agents.

The shop will shutter forever in a little more than two weeks but the goods are going quickly. They will not be ordering additional stock and many items are completely sold out; and the additional markdowns only encourage the frenetic “shark smells blood, shark follows blood, shark creates more blood” behavior shopkeepers love.

We lusted for their Cannon’s Strong Box Escape for years. When we heard the store was closing, we rushed to the site as fast as our gas-powered laptop would go. Alas, we were too late. This incredible escape was gone. We cursed aloud because we were miffed, positively ticked that we waited too long to get something we knew we wanted. We hoped this taught us a lesson for the future. It serves us right.

Mark and Shelia Cannon are two of our very favorites. They have always been helpful and cooperative with this on-line scandal sheet. We have thanked them and their attorneys several times for their willingness to drop otherwise meritorious lawsuits in exchange for our issuing a retraction or clarification – or, when it got really bad, openly weeping in a YouTube appeal to their better natures.

They are class in a discipline that seems to define class. Magicians are usually courteous, helpful, and interested. Mark and Shelia Cannon are all that and kind too.

Here is Mark’s letter to us from last night.

Dear Tim,

We hope you are doing fine and enjoying your summer (or winter, depending on where you are).

As we first announced earlier this year, after 11 years of service to the escape artist community, we have decided to close our shop, as of June 30, 2011. We have enjoyed getting to know hundreds of escape artists and handcuff collectors over the years and are honored to count many of you as friends.

Of course we will continue to perform our escapes and provide consultation on a limited basis. Sheila is now a vacation specialist and will be focusing on providing exceptional service to her clients, based on first-hand knowledge. (If you would like more information about her travel services, please let us know).

We are selling out of our items VERY quickly. In almost all cases, when we sell the last of an item, we will not be making or replacing our stock. So, if there is something that you’ve been thinking about buying, we encourage you to do so now, before that item is no longer available. Click here to visit our website.

They are offering a very limited number of Cannon’s Great Escapes Challenge Coins. The coin design is unique and in the parlance of today’s kids, “cool.” We ordered the maximum number, one. There were around 40 left at the time of this post.

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