There’s a lot of misinformation around about the Vanishing Birdcage. I have never really considered myself an expert about that trick, but recently it’s become clear that I know a lot more than most people, but I still don’t consider myself an expert. It’s a trick I’ve been fascinated with for a long time, I’ve used off and on since I was a teenager, and tried different styles. At one point, I even did the Tommy Wonder vanish with the sleeves rolled up.
In a Facebook group, someone posted a link to a reel that was being sold as a door closer. Then this conversation happened:
You really can’t beat a wrist to wrist pull for the actual vanish of the birdcage. The power needed for the vanish happens before the vanish happens, and there’s no way a reel or elastic can reasonably come close to the power your arms can generate in an instant.
For the flash vanish, right before you are going to put tension on the pull’s cord by pushing the cage away from the body as hard as you can. This is going to start building up energy, and when you let go of the cage, you are releasing all that energy. That explosion of power is what starts to send the cage up your sleeve. This is how snapping your fingers works: a buildup of pressure and a sudden release of what’s holding back that pressure. Once you let go of the cage, the string continues to pull it up your sleeve, but it’s the initial release from your hands that does most of the work.
Most magicians think it’s the pull dragging the cage up your sleeve, and not the cage shooting up your sleeve. Yes, you can vanish the cage by pulling it up your sleeve, but that way is a very inefficient use of energy, and you need a lot of arm movement to accomplish this. Having the cage shoot up your sleeve requires very little arm movement. The exception to this is Billy McComb’s Slow Motion Vanishing Birdcage; it’s still a situation where a reel or elastic would be inferior, as you lack control of the vanish.
If using a reel or elastic for the vanish (this is different from how a Take Up Reel is used), you are going to have constant tension on the corner of the cage that’s attached to the elastic. That means you are going to be fighting that tension to keep the cage upright while displaying the cage. It would virtually rule out using an Abbott’s / Blackstone style Vanishing Birdcage, and make using a semi-rigid card really difficult. From the audience’s perspective, your arms are going to be tense the whole time you’re holding the birdcage. You’ll be holding it like it weighs 20 pounds, not less than a pound. This is the huge advantage of a wrist to wrist pull, you can instantly add tension to the line whenever you want. In the case of the vanishing birdcage, you can do it a fraction of a second before the vanish. This allows you to handle the cage much more freely.
For the actual power of the vanish, to get a reel strong enough to match the tension you can put on the cord with a wrist to wrist pull, the reel would have to be massive. Same with an elastic cord, it would be very thick.
Something else to consider is that with elastic or a reel is whether you are going to ditch the cage or to keep the cage up your sleeve. If the arm that it’s anchored to moves away, the cord will stretch. That will cause you to have to make exaggerated motions to compensate for the stretch to move the cage in your sleeve. Also, after the vanish and the cage is in your sleeve, the cage’s weight will be pulling on the line, so you’ll be fighting it, wanting to crawl back out of your sleeve. Sure, you could have the elastic super short, but then there will be constant tension on your arms after the vanish.
When I do the vanishing birdcage, the cage is attached to the string by a clip that I can manipulate with one hand. That allows me to easily ditch the cage, so I don’t have to finish the show or do a meet and greet with it in my sleeve!
I think people want to complicate the vanishing birdcage by adding things to it because a wrist to wrist pull is too simple to be what’s connected to the complex cage. Yes, a Take Up Reel is something that is an addition to the trick, but something that helps with everything up until the actual effect happens. The Take Up Reel has done its job before the vanish happens. When the actual vanish happens the Take Up Reel is functioning like a wrist to wrist pull.
If you’re going to do the Vanishing Birdcage, learn to do it with a wrist to wrist pull before you start playing with elastic, or whatever. That will give you a baseline for how the vanish should look.
Now let’s chat about your cage. There are people who know a lot more than I do, but I’ve spent some time with several different styles of cages and know a little bit about what helps make the trick successful.
One thing is having a decent quality cage. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a cage, but you will have to spend a few bucks. What you are looking for in a cage is something that’s smooth when collapsed. Tommy Wonder, in his book, mentions running a loop of string around the cage to look for snags, and Billy McComb, in his DVDs, mentions rubbing it with a silk to look for snags. Since brick and mortar magic shops are becoming less and less common, it’s harder to look at a vanishing birdcage in person. Something you can look for in an online picture is how streamlined it looks. Does it have a lot of bumps when collapsed? If you think it does, look for one that has less.
The cage that I use when collapsed is very streamlined and doesn’t have much bulk. My working cage will easily fit through my wedding ring with the bird inside the cage! While having less bulk is important, the cage having fewer snag points is more important!
People always ask me what kind of vanishing birdcage I use. Over the years I’ve used several different ones. My first one was a La Galeria vanishing bird cage, and it was given to me when I was a teenager by another magician because it had some broken bars. In the past, I’ve used a Lindhorst, Owen, Riser/Summers Baby Lindy, and one that was custom built for me by my “cage guy”. Some things to consider when picking a cage are how you are going to use it and how you need it to be on your body after the vanish. Blackstone Jr used a small Abbott’s cage, which was helpful because he needed to wear it for half of the show up his sleeve!
The main thing you are looking for is something that won’t get caught on your sleeve. Once you figure that out, you still have another challenge, and that is weight. Recently, I bought this cage from a magic auction:
The cage is 5 inches by 4 inches and 4 inches tall and made of brass. That makes this thing HEAVY! When you’re doing the vanishing bird cage, one of the things that you are fighting during the vanish is gravity. The weight of the cage doesn’t help you win that fight! There are some styles of vanish where the weight of a heavier cage helps, but this is the outlier. I also have some very light cages in my collection, and I feel like they don’t shoot up my sleeve as well as a slightly heavier cage.
To put it in perspective, I have another cage of similar construction and dimensions to the heavy brass cage.
The brass cage on the right is 337 grams or almost 3/4 of a pound! The cage on the left is 165 grams, which is essentially half the weight of the brass cage. The cage on the left also collapses into a thinner profile. I suspect the brass cage was made as a DIY vanishing birdcage, and not something that was mass produced for sale to other magicians.
When you do the vanish with the brass cage, it lands in your sleeve, and it lands hard! That hard landing exaggerates every snag point that the cage has. What may be a minor snag on the lighter cage is a big deal with the heavier cage. Once it’s in your sleeve, you are fighting gravity, pulling it against the bottom of your sleeve and adding a lot of friction, which slows it down.
I’m glad to have added this to my collection, and gotten to compare it to something similar, but half the weight, to really confirm my suspicion that weight does matter in a vanishing cage!
There are many different styles of cages and pulls. If you’re starting out, I’m going to recommend a medium weight cage, like an Owen Challenge Cage Mystery or a Lindhorst Vanishing Birdcage. Unfortunately, neither is currently made, so you’ll have to hunt around for them. At the time of writing this (2026), expect to pay around $750-$1,000 for an Owen Cage and $300-$500. If you’ve got the money, Walter Blaney’s Perfect Vanishing Birdcage is great, but it comes in at $2,500.
The Milson Worth Silver Meteor vanishing birdcage, which also aren’t made anymore, but they are easy to find and sell for about $100-$200. These are a smaller cage than most, and the design is different from the Lindhorst style, which is what most modern cages are. I personally dislike the design of the Silver Meteor as it has some snag points that the Lindhorst design doesn’t. It’s not a bad cage, but in my opinion, it takes a bit of extra and necessary work/risks to perform with.
OK, I’ve talked a lot about the props; there’s one last huge thing I want to cover, and that’s when the trick fails. Personally, I don’t think you can consider yourself an expert on the vanishing birdcage if you’ve never had it fail in the show. It’s like a comedian bombing onstage; it has to happen before you can be great! When the trick fails, and you’re standing there with a cage sticking out of your sleeve, you learn WHY it failed. Did you get too comfortable and forget a step, did something break, or whatever. That reinforces your procedures before the show, like examining the cage, or during the vanish, like making a hand tunnel, etc. It also teaches you that you need to know what to do when it doesn’t work. A failure in front of an audience may make you change the style of vanish you do. The vanishing birdcage isn’t like most tricks, when it fails, there’s not an out. Don’t let the fear of failure scare you away from this great trick, failure with this makes you better!
-Louie
PS: Click here for more information about my Take Up Reel!