David Copperfield's "Museum"

I've been working the David Copperfield story today, albeit with little success as there's very little available information beyond the fact that the Vegas FBI raided the magician's warehouse here on behalf of the Seattle FBI. The rest of the information out there -- that it has to do with a sex incident in the Bahamas and that the FBI left the warehouse with a large sum of money -- is all reported by the local TV and paper using unnamed sources.

That said, the warehouse is kind of in=teresting because on "The Strip" in December 2005, Copperfield declined to identify even where it is located. And here's the exchange about it that we had at the time:

Copperfield: I have a museum here, it's not for the public. It's a secret museum. It’s got all kinds of really cool stuff. That's become the place where all my stuff goes.

Friess: What's the purpose of having a secret museum?

Copperfield: Well, I'm a magician, so I do magic stuff and the museum and all of the stuff I have are dealing with secrets. If it were a public museum, it wouldn't be good for my fellow magicians.

Friess: It is funny because I did find it on your website, there was a lot of discussion of all the different items that you collected. Is there a point where it will be public? What will you do with all these things. And where are they? I was looking on the site to find out where this museum was and I really couldn't find out.

Copperfield: Exactly.

Friess: Because it's not there.

Copperfield: No, I don't keep this to myself. Scholars get to use it. People who are writing books on magic use it for research. And for the public, I've done lots of displays. The people from the Smithsonian design displays and take it out on the road. ... They take them to Washington D.C. or New York City or to L.A. to the Kodak Theater where they do the Oscars. I tihnk it's important to let the people experience it and that's what I'm doing.

Friess: It's called the International Museum and Library of Conjuring Arts. Interesting way of putting it. Conjuring arts. It has a sort of Harry Potter ring to it.

Copperfield: There you go. It didn't 5 years ago.

You can hear the entire discussion here or right-click here to download it and hear it whenever you wish.