About Opti-Gone International

"We have been making Mirages since 1977, and the market really took off by 1990. Since then we have continued our expansion into a wider domestic market, as well as a growing international customer base. Now many years later, I find Opti-Gone products selling to a second generation of buyers who tell me they want a Mirage® because 'their father had one when they were little.' So we keep right on making Mirages!"

- Michael Levin, Founder and President, Opti-Gone International


Michael, Gina, and John-Clark Levin, at home in Ojai, California - a quiet little artist's community nestled within a citrus-growing valley - only 14 miles from the Pacific Ocean.

Improved Mirage® Model 2000

Since its inception Mirage has always been manufactured in the United States. As you can imagine I pay more than double the cost of Asian manufacturing, but being much closer to the source of production has enabled Opti-Gone International to maintain its high standards of quality.

With this end in mind, some years ago I moved production to a new factory in St. Louis after some 16 years of production in Michigan. You'll notice the difference particularly in a more robust mirror protection. The technology employed by the St. Louis facility makes the mirrors safer to clean and more resistant to slight abrasion.

Of course you must still treat the mirror surfaces with the same respect given to a camera lens, but with reasonable care, longevity should be extended.

"And, This Little Piggie..."

"Go ahead. Pick up the little pink pig."

How many times is this phrase spoken each day? And in how many languages? Search me, but I'd guess the number is a large one.

Shop owners, school teachers, and Mirage® owners from all walks of life and nationality become magicians if just for those few moments as they seek to entice the uninitiated. A good laugh always ensues, and both the doer and do-ee feel a bit lighter for the experience.

But there was a time when each Mirage® did not come with a little pink piggie as they do today. And, like so many other milestones in history, its inclusion was serendipitous. It was the year 1992 when I noticed that one of our customers, a hologram store in Phoenix was steadily increasing its Mirage® orders. Curiosity prompted me to call to inquire as to the secret.

It seems that one day a neighboring mall vendor dropped by the hologram store, spotted the Mirage® demo on the counter, took a little pink piggie out of his pocket, and popped it into the Mirage®.

Seeing this, a customer in the store declared that she wanted to buy a Mirage®. Then she dragged in a group of her friends to see the "pig thing." So, the piggie remained on loan for a while to the hologram store, and sales began to skyrocket.

The store owner helped me locate a source of supply for the piggies and they soon became a much-favored addition to our product. Since that time I receive occasional calls from distraught store managers whose demo piggies have "escaped." One particularly porous location that comes to mind are the Smithsonian Museum Gift Shops. For some unexplained reason the escapes are often discovered soon after one of many boy scout troops have exited the shops.

Which brings me to final note of "piggie trivia." For the first few years that a piggie was included with each Mirage®, I thought it was clever to give it a name and identity. So I printed little pink slips of paper advising the new Mirage® owner to take good care of "Wilbur" (remember Charlotte's Web?)

This all went well for some time until I got a call from a fellow in Arkansas. He brought my attention to the fact that our "Wilbur" was actually a "Wilamina" which he pointed out anyone could see by looking at its underside. I thanked him for the brief lesson in animal husbandry and quietly discontinued the little pink slips of paper as enclosures.