The first vanishing bird cage that I had was a La Galleria and was given to me when I was a teenager. It has broken bars and while I used it for years, the broken bars were a challenge. I eventually had it repaired and it worked great!
Recently one popped up for sale that was in great shape, so I bought it. Here it is on the left next to my old one on the right:
My old one collapses really well, it’s got a nice action to it. The one I just got doesn’t really collapse well. It’s like the hinges that hold the large side bars on it are slightly too big and you almost have to fight the cage to get it to collapse, and when it does it’s not as slim as it could be.
I’m glad I have my original cage as it works much better, and I’m not judging this version of the vanishing bird cage on the recently acquired one. It’s nice to add another to my collection, but that one will be a collection piece and not a working one for me!
It’s been a crazy few weeks for adding vanishing bird cages to my collection! At the last Potter and Potter auction this vanishing bird cage was listed:
This one went for an amount that I could afford! Lately the ones being auctioned off have gone for crazy amounts of money, but those were also a bit more collectible. This one doesn’t have a name (manufacturer or performer) attached to it, so I think that’s partially why it went for less than they’ve been going for.
When I was a teenager I was given a La Galeria -The Gallery of Merlin vanishing birdcage that had a couple of broken bars. I used that for a long time and struggled through the broken bar occasionally snagging on my sleeve. Then about 12years ago I had someone fix the bars, and I used that cage until I got an Owen vanishing bird cage.
Recently one of the La Galeria -The Gallery of Merlin vanishing bird cages popped up for sale and I bought it!
The solder and rivets on the bars of this one appear to be in much better condition that the one I’ve have for 30+ years. I’m happy to add this to my collection and can’t wait for it to arrive! -Louie
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!!
My Vanishing Bird Cage collection just grew by another cage. This one popped up on eBay for $35 and I grabbed as soon as I saw it.
Without seeing it in person, I don’t know who made it or if its actually from the 1940’s. However for $35 it’s a gamble I’m willing to take.
Looking at the solders on the “U” joints in the pictures and the dimensions gives me confidence that this isn’t a cage from India, and I’m really hoping what is pictured is what will show up in the mail.
Another clue is in one of the pictures you can see the top of an instruction sheet that says: AN N.M.C. PRESENTATION ROUTINE. That would imply this is a cage that was sold by the National Magic Company.
We’ll see what shows up in the mail. Unfortunately I’ll probably be out of the country performing when it shows up, so I won’t be able to see it for a week or two.
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.
Recently I had a magician reach out to me to let me know there were some vanishing bird cages in a magician’s estate. I didn’t have much information to on as to what one of the cages was.
Obviously one of them is a Milson Worth Silver Meteor vanishing bird cage. This one is cool, because I’ve owned dozens of Milson Worth cage, but never had the instructions, until now!
Now for the interesting cage, the one that’s not clear as to who made it. There wasn’t a lot of information that I could pull from the pictures, so I totally took a gamble when buying it.
Here’s the cage:
It looks a lot like my Owen Magic vanishing bird cage, so here they are side by side:
The dimensions are exactly the same. There are a couple of small differences. The cage I just got isn’t stamped “OWEN” where the cage on the left that’s 100% and Owen is stamped. The lack of a stamp doesn’t mean that it’s not an Owen, as there was a period decades ago were many weren’t stamped. The Owen cage that I already has was much more modern.
Another difference between the two cages are the corner pieces.
The modern Owen cage on the right appears to have the ends peened, where the mystery cage looks like they’re peened and a blob of solder is added. I was chatting with a friend of mine and he found an old Owen Magic Supreme catalog and the ends of the corner bars also have the solder blobs!
This catalog is from the 80’s and back then the Challenge Cage Mystery was $97.50!!!
After asking around a bit, I got this little bit of information:
The size of the rails match those dimensions.
Based on all of this, I’m now 99% confident to call this birdcage and Owen Challenge Cage Mystery!
One problem is that one of the corners needs a repair, it’s missing the solder blob.
I’m sending this out to my birdcage guy and he’s going to repair it and polish up the cage!
-Louie
PS: if you come across a vanishing bird cage, feel free to reach to me to see if I’m interested in buying it!
I love that there are people who know what I’m into and when they run into thing that they think I’d like, they text me! For example, I collect vanishing bird cages and last month at magic live my buddy Clive Hayward sent me some pictures of a vanishing bird cage that was for sale there.
This cage is unusual, you’ll notice the side bars are attached by string!
I have a vanishing bird cage in my collection that’s similar, however it has metal parts that connect the sidebars to the cage. I’m curious if maybe this vanishing birdcage was a “budget” model of one with metal connectors, or if this was a home repair.
Last week I did a library gig, it was my, first one since last summer and it was a lot of fun. They had me doing a show for kids on spring break and had me do a fun, non themed show.
The show has a very simple set up, just a case, banner and my sound system. The show is my generic kid show.
Here’s a peek into the show’s case. That’s a 45 minute show with about 10-12 minutes of additional emergency material. The emergency material is for when the audience is a lot younger than what the show is designed for. I’ll swap in the emergency material for things that aren’t for kids under 5 or 6 years old.
That material for younger kids is considered emergency as my show is sold as for being for school aged kids. If you’ve worked libraries at all, then you know the audience will frequently skew younger than the suggested age range and it’s important to be prepared for that.
I just had my first custom made birdcage arrive! It’s the cage in the middle in the picture below:
It’s the pretty much right in between an Owen Vanishing Birdcage and the Summers/Riser Baby Lindy Vanishing Birdcage.
The middle size is great so far (I’ve only practiced with it). I like that it’s visually larger. I like the size of the Owen cage, however it’s just a tad too long for my sleeve and I need to ditch it really quickly after the vanish. Where the smaller Summers/Riser cage can live in my sleeve for a while. The new middle size is just short enough so I don’t feel like I need to ditch it right away!
