A concept art of Ollivander's shop in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Ollivander's Wand Shop is own by Mr. Ollivander. Wandmaking has been the family business since 382 B.C. The Present Mr. Ollivander has been selling wand sense the 1930's. Harry got his wand before the school year 1991-1992. He got 11 inches long, made of holly, with a phoenix feather. as for lord voldemort wand he has 13 1/2" in length yew with a phoenix feather core. The Phoenix so hapen to be Dumbledore's Fawkes, the magical familiar of Albus Dumbledore.
In Pottermore, it says that the family of Ollivander has long been associated with the mysterious profession of wandcraft. It is said that the name means 'he who owns the olive wand', which suggests that the original Ollivander arrived in Britain from a Mediterranean country (olive trees not being native to the UK). Mr Ollivander himself believes that his earliest forebears in this country arrived with the Romans, and set up stall (subsequently shop) to sell to ancient British wizards whose wands were crude of construction and unreliable in performance.
Mr Ollivander is arguably the finest maker of wands in the world, and many foreigners travel to London to purchase one of his wands in preference to those on offer in their native lands. Mr Ollivander grew up in the family business, in which he showed precocious talent. He had the ambition of improving upon the cores and wand woods hitherto used and from his earliest days conceived a single-minded, even fanatical, determination in his pursuit of the ideal wand.
Prior to Mr Ollivander's proprietorship of the family business, wizards used a wide variety of wand cores. A customer would often present the wandmaker with a magical substance to which they were attached, or had inherited, or by which their family swore (hinted at by the core of Fleur Delacour's wand). Mr Ollivander, however, was a purist who insisted that the best wands would never be produced merely by encasing the whiskers of a favourite Kneazle (or the stalk of a Dittany plant that once saved a wizard's father from poisoning, or the mane of a kelpie a witch had once met on holiday in Scotland) in the customer's favourite wood. The best wands, he believed, had cores of immensely powerful magical substances, which were expertly enclosed in specially selected and complementary wandwoods, the result to be matched to an owner with whom the wand itself felt the most affinity. While there was initially substantial resistance to this revolutionary way of crafting wands, it swiftly became clear that Ollivander wands were infinitely superior to anything that had come before. His methods of locating wand woods and core substances marrying them together and matching them to ideal owners are all jealously guarded secrets that were coveted by rival wandmakers.
;
Behind the Scenes
- In the novels, films and games, Ollivanders Wand Shop was located in Diagon Alley. The one in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is a branch of the original.
- In a conference call[1] on January 28, 2010 with Thierry Coup, vice president of creative development for Universal Creative, many details were revealed:
- The shop is about 30 feet high.
- Potter film set designer Stuart Craig will be creating some of the wands, approved by J. K. Rowling,
- There will be a wand fitting, and if it doesn't work out, there will be interesting effects, including flowers wilting and lightning and thunder outside the windows of the shop itself, very similar in what we've seen in the first movie.
- Wand prices are $29.95, and with tax included, $31.95 (two dollars more). Wand sets (the Triwizard Champion Set and Dumbledore's Army collection) cost about $130.
- If the right wand does choose you, more effects will occur, such as the lamp lighting up, and you will have the option to buy it or not.
- There are 13 different types of wand wood for the choosing, which are unique to the shop, and visitors' wood type will be determined according to their birthdate on the Celtic calendar. Wandwoods include reed, vine, oak, alder, and hazel.
- The show usually lasts about five minutes. There is no fee for being chosen, but there is a cost for the wand.
- Rather than Mr. Ollivander helping the young wizard find his or her wand, wizards claiming to be "wandkeepers" help the boy or girl find their wand.
- There will be wands from some of the main characters' wands - hero wands - including in sets, which are made by Noble Collection; this is different to the personal wands that will be chosen for 'wizard' guests to the park.
- There are numerous things that can go wrong if you have the incorrect wand. They are listed as: Various bells go off in the shop, a vase of flowers wilt, a storm is created, several shelves fall apart, the drawers behind a ladder try to "escape", or the wand refuses to work and nothing happens.
- In the front window, stands holding three wands are on either side of a plain wand that levitates inches off of the dusty purple cushion mentioned in the books. In the window that is located outside the Owl Post, there are more wands presented on stands.
- Wands are generally about fourteen inches long. The shortest is the bendy, colourful willow wand, at ten inches long, and the twisted, dark-coloured alder wand being the longest at seventeen inches long.
- Employees working in the shop and in the Owl Post and Dervish and Banges have wands held in their belts, as to give the impression that they are also wizards and witches, capable of casting spells.
