Mail-Order Magi

Going the Three Wise Men 13 better, a Houston department store this Christmas is offering the services of 16 mail-order magi for a total cost of $825,000--which tots up to a lot of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Called The Ultimate Gift of Knowledge, a newly published catalogue from the Sakowitz company includes a choice of lessons from top pros in just about every sport or hobby the loved one may want to learn --from skiing to swimming, bronc busting to piano playing. Prudently, perhaps, the company does not offer courses in poetry, philosophy, painting or other such pastures to which it might be difficult to attach a price tag--or a buyer.

What Sakowitz does offer the doting donor is lessons in earthier arts that are certain to make the recipient the cocktail-party one-upsman (or woman) of 1975. How many of the gang, for example, will be able to boast of a day's skiing with coaching by Jean-Claude Killy at Val d'Isere, France (for a mere $4,325, not including travel and accommodations)? For the price of an airline ticket to California, plus board and meals, plus $115,000, the gift recipient can take ten private swimming lessons with Mark Spitz. Want to be the best dancer at the country club? Mitzi Gaynor will dedicate a whole day of terpsichorean tutoring for $10,600.

Attention athletes: to help brush up on the golf game, Doug Sanders will take six days out of his time and $7,000 out of your bank account for six lessons in Jamaica and Houston. Tennis, anyone? The Wise Man is John Newcombe, the venue near San Antonio, the price $8,650 for a day. You dream of winning the Kentucky Derby? For a mere $5,750, Top Jockey Mary Bacon will help steer equestrian Mittys toward the winner's circle. Sakowitz's least expensive offering is the three-day bronc-buster or bull-rider clinic chaired by Larry Mahan of Mesquite, Texas, which costs $230 and includes bunk and beans. Bring your own accident insurance.

In more aesthetic areas, the Sakowitz catalogue vends a day's guitar lessons with Jose Feliciano ($14,500), an ivory day with Peter Duchin at the piano ($3,750), drumming with Buddy Rich ($5,250) and two "Lessons in Conversation" with Truman Capote, lisped at $3,000. There is also a one-day grounding in economics with doom-crying Economic Forecaster Eliot Janeway, whose price ($2,875) would suggest emigration rather than investment.

The most expensive bargain is offered by Jimmy ("the Greek") Snyder, the famed Las Vegas savant. Entitled "Lessons in How to Make Odds," the Greek's tutorial services cost $565,000 with an optional extra: purchase of all his 1975 handicaps for $875,000. Jimmy tells TIME'S magi that he is betting 2 to 1 that he will not sign a single sucker.

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