Magicians frequently ask me where I get my vintage magic tricks. Well, there’s not one source; this one kinda happened out of the blue. Basically, someone at a show told me they had an old box of magic tricks. We negotiated a price at the show, and I bought the box without knowing what was in it!
Here’s the saga:
There are some winners in that box!
-Louie
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!
-Louie
The local magic club had their swap meet night and I found a few cool things!
First I found an early version of Richard Himber’s Billfooled!
This is a switch wallet and from what I’ve learned this predated what we call the Himber Wallet. The Z fold wallet was an evolution of this.
The next thing I found, were these Repeating Rabbits!
To me these look more like cats than rabbits. This trick is similar to the multiplying bananas.
Finally, my favorite of the things I found was The Puzzle Pants!
That packaging is the best part!
The pants have two balls sewn into them and you have to take them out. This is a Scotch Purse, but themed as pants!
All three of these are great additions to my collection of vintage magic!
-Louie
I hate the saying that “everything has been done before” when talking about creating magic tricks. A few years ago when Watch This, which is a card to watch came out that was sort of a “new” thing!
I just stumbled across this trick from 1910 that’s basically the same trick! It’s Card to Baby!
It’s basically the same thing, but instead of a watch, it’s a freaking baby!!!!
I guess there really isn’t anything new under the sun!
-Louie
