Magic Wand Guide
Olleke's Ultimate Magic Wand Guide
From Harry's favourite spell 'Expelliarmus' to Hermione's 'Levi-O-saaah', wizards know mastering spells and wands take a lot of practice. Magic doesn't come for granted, otherwise any Muggle could conjure up a house elf to clean the dirty dishes or fly a broomstick to work. In the search for the perfect wand, we face several problems: Which wand maker do I choose? Violetta Beauvais, Arturo Cephalopos, Death itself (According to The Tale of the Three Brothers), Mykew Gregorovitch, Johannes Jonker, Jimmy Kiddell, Antioch Peverell (According to Albus Dumbledore), Ollivander, Thiago Quintana, Shikoba Wolfe, Isolt Sayre, James Steward or Salazar Slytherin?
According to Garrick Ollivander 'The wand chooses the wizard'. But it took a long time to find the right one for Harry Potter (eleven inches, holly, phoenix feather) and even Voldemort's wand was unfaithful, luckily. Wizarding Shop Olleke, lets you choose a wand that you like best. You can find all wands online or come pick one up in our brick and mortar shops in Belgium and the Netherlands. We keep a lot of wands in stock and you can try them all. With this wand guide we will help you find the perfect wand.
On the left: Elder wand on a Hogwarts Wand Stand. On the right: Four different wands in a Harry Potter Wand Display.
Finding your own Wand
Open a book about Pagans and you'll learn you have to wander around a forest, barefoot to find the tree that matches your personality. Then you ask the tree spirit permission to return upon the next Full Moon, so may cut off a branch that fits half your arm lenght, before refining the wood and decorating it with a hidden core, energy gems, carve or paint Runes, Ogam or other symbols on it.
Olleke lets you choose your Wand according to your taste! For many Potterheads that's a quite difficult task, because we have so many. Two characteristics determine which wand suits you best: your height and your own character. If you are tall and have an open character, you usually have a longer wand, while small and shy people have a shorter wand. The wand reflects or complements the character of the wizard. The wand of especially determined magicians are adamant, such as Bellatrix Lestrange. Wizards with a more fragile character, who are easily influenced, tend to have flexible rods, like Draco Malfoy. Hermione's wand is made of the wood of the grapevine - according to Ollivander, a less common material that is best suited to witches and wizards who have a higher purpose. The type of wood is important. Voldemort's wand is made of yew, a symbol of death and eternal life. Harry's wand, on the other hand, is made of holly, according to treelore used to drive evil spirits away. Well, Expecto Patronum to that.
The magical core is particularly important for the character of a wand. Phoenix feathers take time to get used to their owners and have a mind of their own. Unicorn hair is perfect for making spells, but isn't considered powerful. Dragon heart work strong spells, but are temperamental and prone to accidents. Tail hair of a thestral is strongly related to death, which is an unfortune for it's owner as the wand changes rulership quite frequently. Not much is known about other cores, but anything is possible.
Legal possession of a wand is a complex matter! If a wizard is defeated in a duel, it can happen that the wand changes allegiance. A simple disarming spell or mere physical strength is sufficient for this. But you don't automatically lose your wand every time you attack, which makes the matter even more confusing. If there is a duel between twin rods, the phenomenon of the Priori Incantatem can arise. This is what happens in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: the wands refuse to kill the owner of the other wand.
Ron, Hermione and Harry Wand in Ollivander edition (left) and Character edition (right)
Ollivander Edition vs Character Edition
With the Ollivander edition, you get a beautiful tactile box that looks like the one in the movie series. When you open the box, it has two flaps of tûle covering the wand, snugg in a velvet lining. The Ollivander boxes have different lengths and shades of colour. Dumbledore's wand is ultramarine blue and a lot longer than Snape's black wandbox. The boxes have no names, but only a vintage compass sticker on both sides, except Harry's darkbrown packaging is adorned with a mysterious combination of numbers. Each Harry Potter Ollivander box comes with a Certificate of authenticity, the Fantastic Beasts version doesn't have a Certificate but each box indicates the name of it's owner on the side. The Ollivander edition is manageable: you can collect eight Harry Potter Wands and all Fantastic Beasts Wands.
The Character Edition wands contain the same wands in a different box. The inside of the box is always black. Apart from the brighter different coloured outer boxes, it has a uniform design, all boxes have the same length, which simplifies the presentation. Each name is printed on top of the box in an oval metallic sticker. At the Universal Theme Parks and Warner Bros Studio Tour you can buy the same wands in a darkgrey, darkbrown or black coloured box with a kind of vintage beige kraftpaper name label on the short end of the box. These types of packaging are exclusive for the Theme Parks and aren't sold anywhere else.
The most important difference between the Ollivander and Character Edition, is the name badge, which is only included with the character edition. You can attach it to the top of the box and present your collection on a shelf. It gets even nicer with an official wall display for four or ten magic wands. There is a metal bar for placing the brass metal name tags below the corresponding wand. And there is a much larger selection of wands in the Character Edition, which makes this edition the first choice for many Potterheads who desire to display all Harry Potter wands.
In some stores you'll find plastic toywands. These wands are smaller or very chunky and/or malled into a strange cube-form or have pressable lightup gems that look like something the Power Rangers would use. Some of these wands even make sounds when you wave. The advantage of toywands are: the low cost of the mass produced item and the unbreakablity of plastic. We don't sell them, because we serve collectors looking for movie accurate items.
Character Edition Wand of Tonks, Moody, James Potter and Grindelwald.
Special Edition Wands
In addition there are some special edition collector's wands. A highlight is the Lucius Malfoy's first 'snake' wand hidden in an cane. The actual rod is decorated in a silverplated snake's head adorned with green crystals. The walking stick is made from wood, mat black coated and impresses not only with its design, but also with its size and weight! You can also find Lucius second modest wand in the Character Editions, after Voldemort requested Lucius to give up his wand.
Bellatrix her first wand, stolen in the end by Hermione, is available with a wall display that has her miniature death eaters mask. The wall display hold the curved wand in it's place by two metal hooks. You can get the first wand separately at Warner Bros Studio Tour, these boxes don't have a name badge. The first wand is also sold in a blister packaging, without a box to store your wand nor name badge nor certificate. To be clear: we only sell the display version in our shop. Her second straight black wand is also available in the Character Editions.
Dolores Umbridge won't win the people's choice, but we do sell her wand occasionally. In order to increase the optical opulence immeasurably, the magic wand is placed on bright pink display with a brass metal ribbon in an almost self-glorious manner. The wooden display has a wall bracket, ideal to hang between your spying wizardcat plates.
The wands from Fred and George Weasley come as a set with a display made of real wood, with a brass coloured metal plate on top engraved with the famous W of the Weasley twins. The wands are presented on metal rods that protrude vertically upwards, which makes them seem to float in the air. The fact that the shape of the wand is also reminiscent of brooms reinforces the impression. At the Warner Bros Studio Tour you can buy the wands separately in a box, without the name badge. The separate wands are exclusive to the Studio Tour.
One of the newest special editions is Hagrid's umbrella. The old pink colored umbrella owned by Rubeus Hagrid conceals the pieces of his broken wand. The replica looks like an umbrella, with the handle and box of an Ollivander wand. Hagrid was falsely accused by Tom Riddle to have released a creature on the school that killed a witch named Myrtle Warren. As a result of this, his wand was destroyed. Dumbledore allowed him to secretly keep the shards of his wand in the shaft of an umbrella as the shards still possessed a good portion of the wand's original power. However, since he never graduated, Hagrid's magic was never flawless; so even though he was able to use the umbrella as a substitute, he did not have the skill required for complex feats of magic.
Wand display of Bellatrix with mini Death Mask
Lucius Cane, Fred (above) and George (below) wand
Dolores Umbridge Wand and Hagrid Umbrella Wand with Ollivander extra long box
Wand Display Collections
In some Wand Display Collection you'll get exclusive wands, like the first wand of Luna Lovegood and the wand of Peter Pettigrew. These wands aren't sold separately, so the only way to get your hands on them is to buy the display collection. Some clients say it's a pitty you can't buy the exclusive wands or in case you already have some of the wands, you end up with duplicates.
Unlike the Character and Ollivander editions in single boxes, the wands that come with a Wand Collection are produced specificly for the item. They are using different molds for these replicas. If your looking for high quality, you'll notice that wands from a Wand Collection are molded more elegant and are highly detailed compared to wands from single boxes. In case you do have dupes to compare the wands, you'll see that the wands from the Wand Collections have sometimes a slightly different shape, the form is more crisp, elegant and the colour is more detailed. So that's what you are paying for, besides the display and sometimes exclusive wand.
Make some room! The legendary competition Triwizard Tournament brings together the three largest European magic schools - Beauxbatons, Hogwarts and Durmstrang - and lets three champions chosen by the Goblet of Fire compete. The 1994 edition ended tragic. It ended dramatically with the death of Cedric Diggory and the rebirth of Lord Voldemort. Reasons enough to display the wands of the four contestants. The Triwizard Tournament Wand Collection has a beautiful wooden display for the wand of Harry Potter, Cedric Diggory, Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum. The protective plexiglass makes it look something out of a historic museum. Epic.
One of the first collections is the Wand Collection of Dumbledore's Army, a rebellious student organization initiated by Hermione Granger. Since secrecy was the top priority of the group, the members had to sign an enchanted parchment. This parchment is at the heart of the collection, which contains the wands of the most important founding members: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron and Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood. Luna is special because it includes her first wand, which cannot be bought otherwise.
Two new wand collection, released in 2020, are firstly the Marauders Wand Collection, displayed on a handpainted Marauder's Map, holding the wand of the four Marauders: James Potter, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. This last wand is exclusive for this collection and isn't sold separately.
Secondly the Dark Wizard Wand Set, with the wands of Lord Voldemort, Death Eater Skull, Death Eater Swirl, Death Eater Snake and Death Eater Thorn, on a shaped silver metallic Dark Mark wall display. Yikes!
The final two wand collection revolves around the Fantastic Beasts. The handpainted display shows the coat of arms of the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA). This is the American equivalent of the British Ministry of Magic, which historically has a rather poor relationship with the non-magical population. The collection includes the five most important wands from the film adaptation: Seraphina Picquery (President of MACUSA), Percival Graves, Porpentina 'Tina' and her sister Queenie Goldstein and of course Newt Scamander, the only one who doesn't work for the government. With the released of the second movie 'Crimes of Grindelwald' a new Wand Display was released in the shape of the Deathly Hallows, with the wands of Leta Lestrange, Theseus Scamander (Newt's brother), Gellert Grindelwald (in possession of the Elder wand), Nicolas Flamel and Newt Scamander.
Special Edition Wands
Marauders Wand Display comes with 4 Marauders wands including the exclusive Peter Pettigrew wand (first slide), the Dark Mark Wand display comes with 5 wands of all Death Eaters and Voldemort's Wand.
Technical, Interactive and Exclusive Wands
Even without a magic wand many Potterheads bring light into the darkness. With the luminous wands of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Newt Scamander you don't risk expulsion from school, as their magical core consists of batteries and dimmable muggle LED light. Through courageous wand gestures and long mastered unsaid spells, saying spells like 'Lumos' and 'Nox' are completely optional. Look for the hidden button in the handle, which you can adjust the intensity of the light to Maxima. Pro tip: with a slow shutter speed on your camera, try to paint words or figures in the air with light and wait for the magical photo result. Nargles everywhere.
It becomes even more magical when you influence your surroundings with a casual wand gesture. That's what the magic wand remote control is for! It allows you to switch on the TV with a wave of your wand, to regulate the volume by gently turning it or to change the channel with a precise swing. If that doesn't create magic within your own four walls! A total of nine gestures can be programmed to which you can assign any function for any device with a remote control. The magic wand works with any device that is uses infrared signals.
The list of technical wands wouldn't be complete without the interactive wands sold at the Universal Theme Parks (Orlando, Hollywood (USA) and Osaka, Japan). Each wand comes with a map of the Theme Park indicating the marks in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, where you can practice using your wand and see some magic happen. Opening a door, making it rain, battle with some chess pieces,.. the wands control sensors in the Theme Park and are sold only at Universal.
Each interactive wandbox has besides the wand and map of the park, a very shiny gold metallic, slightly tacky to our taste, name label on the box. Overall the Harry Potter character interactive wands come in a cognac brown box with the exception of some wands, mostly not related to any characters, these have a moss green, kobalt and plum coloured box with on top of the box trademark logo of Ollivanders™. The interactive wands also have limited editions, twice the regular price, if you want to collect interactive wands and live close to the Park, this might be your thing. We must say that the wand itself is slightly more elegant then the remote control and wands with the illuminating tip, but still are more robust then regular wands and don't have a pointy tip, due to the sensor. The 13 non-related to a character wands are: ash, ivy, holly, reed, birch, oak, vine, willow, alder, hazel, elder, rowan, hawthorn and the 14th wand each year is the untitled limited year's edition. Universal also released exclusive Harry Potter editions of wands in the past, limited for the Celebration Ticket Holders.
In case you're looking for a wand not related to the official Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts collection, we also sell our range of affordable Olleke wands, packed in black boxes with foil printing not related to Wizarding World franchise. Ofcourse you'll find original more expensive wooden and less expensive pvc and resin wands handmade to your liking on internet. Some companies make them from wood, others have drilled out a hole to put a special core inside, some come in mystery boxes, are carved out by pagans and many Potterheads skilled with hot glue, a lighter or black spray paint carving chop sticks or branches to sell homemade versions. We admire some of them, but focus on the official products and our original collection. Needless to say some webshops sell fake items as official. The fake items don't have the packaging mentioned in this article and have all colours and prices under the sun.
Harry Potter Remote Control Wand (first slide), Hermione Wand with Illuminating Tip (second slide)
Practical Wands
Did a muggle tell you to buy something practical? Well, we have ballpoint pens... shaped like wands. And you really needed a new pen, don't you? A Wand Pen works like a good luck charm for your application, exam, to stimulate your inner creativity, to prevent you from a writer's block... or just because it looks cool?
We have three types: ballpoint pens shaped like a wand packed with a bookmark. Ballpoint pens shaped like a wand with an extra feature: it's also a pocket light. And ballpoint pens shaped like a wand with the lenght of a real wand. Awesome, less practical, probably can't be refilled, but who cares? It might be your way of getting that first wand.
Large Wand Pen (first slide), Wand Pen with bookmarks (second slide), Wand Pen with illuminating tip (third slide)
