A few weeks ago before I went out of town I bought a Vanishing Birdcage and it arrived right after I left town. Now that I’m home, I got to open it up and check it out.
As I thought, it’s a Warren Simms vanishing birdcage!
It’s got the “S” stamped on it and the “H” means that it was made for Max Holden’s magic shop. I’ve now got two Simms vanishing bird cages in my collection.
This is my other one that was made for Tannens”
I’m glad to have both of these in my vanishing bird cage collection!!
A couple of weeks ago an unusual vanishing birdcage popped up on eBay. It’s a brass cage made in the Simms style (like the Milson Worth Silver Meteor vanishing Cage). Based on the pictures on the listed it looked mostly homemade, but there were a couple of things that didn’t look like an amateur made it, an this was interesting to me. It was listed at less than an hundred bucks, so I bought it.
When it arrived, the first thing that I notice was the solder blobs on the bar looked giant and sloppy in the pictures were much smaller and fairly well done. The cage needs some work, there’s a bunch of corrosion on one corner of it.
The solder on the tops and bottoms of the bars on the sides of the were really smooth and the side bars were soldered shut. The cage would stand up on its own, but also collapses really quickly. I wasn’t expecting this cage to be as good as it is.
Another interesting thing about this cage is the clip where the pull would attach.
It’s a hook, which implies that whoever used it was hooking up to it during their act/show. This hook feels like it was adding later by the user an not the maker. While the hook is thought out, the part that sticks out of the top of the bar is bent backwards to reduce snagging, it doesn’t feel quite like the same build as the rest of the cage.
If you know anything about this cage or who made it, please let me know!
A couple of days ago I posted about a new vanishing birdcage. It was sold to me as a Sherms Vanishing Bird Cage. It turns out it’s a Warren Simms Vanishing Bird Cage!
Thanks to the super knowledgeable Doug Edwards! He also informed me that the “T” stamped on mine meant it was sold through Tannen’s Magic in New York.
Another Vanishing Bird Cage has been added to my collection. This is (probably) a Sherms Vanishing Bird Cage. This is the original design that Milson Worth used for their Silver Meteor Vanishing Bird Cage, but the Milson Worth Cage was smaller.
This has an “S&” stamped on one side near the clip and a “T” on the other side.
The reason I’m not positive that this is a Sherms is that there’s one on eBay listed as a Warren Simms Vanishing Bird Cage and it has the same “S&” stamp on it, and it has brass bars.
No matter who made it, it’s a cool cage!
If you have positive info on the maker, let me know!
