People always ask me where I find all of the vintage magic stuff that I own or sell. Some of it comes from conventional things like digging through bins at magic shops or magic auctions. Then the unconventional things like garage sales or whatever.
I just paid $15 for this box of magic and I’ll pick it up later today. I just happened to be doing a show in the town where it is.
It looks like mostly junk from the picture, but at $15 for the whole box, I’m willing to lose that on the very low odds that there’s something worthwhile inside.
Personally I really like the excitement of not knowing what’s in the box! It’s like searching for treasure. I will say that I have no problem throwing away the junk, and I think that’s where a lot of magic collectors go wrong, they keep everything even the junk and end up with a garage full of crap.
Personally I’m a collector, not a hoarder…despite what my wife thinks!
The only magic convention I’m going to this year is the Magic Collector Expo. My wife says I’m officially an old man that I’m going to this instead of one that’s got the “latest and greatest” stuff. I do like those conventions, but this one worked with my schedule as most other magic conventions are in the summer that is my busy season.
This convention started yesterday as in at The Orleans casino in Las Vegas. I got into town yesterday just in time for the first session. The sessions here are mostly historical talks or things relevant to collectors.
Personally I really like these types of talks. The speakers were telling personal stories of their relationship with the people and collections. I like that style of presentation more than a totally historical talk about someone that’s been dead for 150 years. I will still watch and enjoy the purely historical talk, I just prefer when the person is telling personal stories.
I really liked Bill Schmeelk’s talk about how he got into working as a machinest and doing that for Owen Magic, John Gaughan, and starting Wellington Enterprises! I really like the stories about the different personalities and what they quirks were and the “conflicts” that different builders had with each other.
I use Rich Marotta’s Rat Trap trick, which is one that Wellington used to make. Unfortunately as far as I know that prop is currently unavailable.
After the sessions I made it to the dealer room. I’ll write about that another time. If you’re into vintage props and the stories behind them, you should check out one of these expos!!
Today I’m travelling from New Orleans, Louisiana to The Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas for the Magic Collector Expo!
I’ve realized that I’m officially an old magician because I’m going to this. It’s also a sign that I’m into the history of the magic tricks and props. I’ve always been into the history, but the props is a more recent thing in the last decade or so. I’ve always been into the old magic props, but having the money and space to collect and display them has only been about the last 10 years.
This should be a fun few days and if you’re at the expo, be sure to say HI!
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.
I love finding old magic, and recently I found something really cool (I”ll post about it another day), but inside of that there was a folded up piece of paper. This is from the mid 1940’s and it had the typed routine for Elmer Applegate’s The Story of One Card Pete!
This is a routine for a six card repeat style where you have five cards, take away one and still have five. It’s an interesting routine, and the patter is rhyming. Jeff McBride has a really cool version of it and worth trying to track down the video of.
There’s a couple of interesting things about this vanishing bird cage. The big thing is that the corners are upside down, the wires are on the inside of the cage and not on the outside.
The corners also feel longer than they need to be, and it turns out that’s a characteristics of YIMKA vanishing birdcages. All of the pictures of them that I’ve now seen have longer corners than most cages.
After a chat with Doug Edwards who is the Vanishing Birdcage guy, it appears that YIMKA made cages with the corners upside down and the standard way. YIMKA also stamped his cages, but not all of them. The cage I have is unstamped, but based on what I’ve learned, I’d say my new cage is probably a YIMKA!
One of the fun things for me is the detective work and figuring out what I’ve just bought!
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.
Over on TikTok I post a lot of videos of vintage magic trick and a recent one was of my Milson Worth Silk Cabby. There are two ways I do these videos. The first is EXACTLY how the instructions say, then if I don’t have the original instructions, I try to add a little bit to the the basic function of the trick.
So the trick has a little bit of a routine, besides the standing production. It’s got three vanishes and then the kicker ending. I was trying to maximize how much I could get out of the Silk Cabby beyond just a production of a lot of silks.
A couple of months ago I got a Leon’s Improved Glass Penetration by Merv Taylor.
It appears it should have a dozen spikes, plus two hooked spikes, and mine only came with six. Five regular spikes and one of the hooked spikes. These are something that was custom made for the trick, so it’s not something I can just go to the hardware store and buy.
This is where my 3D printer comes in handy. I designed a replica of the spike and printed it out!
The test one came out great, now my next step it to print out a full set of them! I do still need to try to create the hooked spike. I’d like the set to match.
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!
