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The most popular rough and smooth deck of all time! Although, it is often mis-credited to Burling Hull, it is precisely the same deck as Joe Berg’s Ultra-Mental Deck c. 1936.  The now standard “invisible deck” comedy presentation was conceived by Eddie Fields and  popularized by Don Alan.

These are made by Steven Perry who is a professional card mechanic and does an amazing job for just a few dollars more.  These are not bulk manufactured, each deck is made by hand with meticulous attention to quality control and precision.  The rough is solid and will not let you down under pressure.

If you need any sort of standard or custom gimmick deck I suggest you contact Stevens Magic and I’m confident you will switch too, I know personally I’ll never go back to the mass dealer ones 🙂

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It is not clear who invented the original version of the Prayer Vase  but ads started appearing in the 1930’s.  Davenport’s called it the Demon Enchanted Vase (c. 1934), Floyd Thayer called it The Chinese Jug and Rope (c. 1936) and Abbott’s called it The Oriental Vase Mystery (c. 1936).  In the Abbott’s adverts they say it was of Oriental origin and that it was first introduced to America by Percy Abbott.

This beauty was created by George Robinson of Viking Mfg. and it is turned of white gumwood and painted with several coats of lacquer.  Hand cut decals are then applied with three finishing coats of clear lacquer and a final waxing to complete the process. 

The vase does not use the standard method and when it was released it did not even include a rope and original gimmick.  To my mind it better if you can do the original rope version first then introduce the wand and use the new method to give an overall better effect.  So I’ve included a rope, gimmick and instructions for the original.

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This is U.F. Grant’s wonderful and overlooked Improved Proxy Substitution Chest. The original version released c. 1946 used just a single chest, but an improved version was introduced c. 1966 using two chests.  This is the latter kind.  It doesn’t look very much when you get it but it is a very convincing transposition that is embarrassingly easy to do.  The basic plot is that two items borrowed from the audience, an item from a lady and an item from a man, change places in a very clean manner.

I thought it would it would be perfect for a Batman and Superman ultimate Smackdown contest …

The chests have plenty of cosmetic marks and scratches  but they work perfectly.  If I was to perform this regularly I would probably repaint them in blacks and browns to represent buildings or maybe green and red for Kryptonite, but as they are they work perfectly too.  Of course you don’t have to use Batman and Superman – any two small items under about 6″ would work.

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This effect was original created by Eric Lewis c. 1947 and is still being created by Eric’s son Martin Lewis. When Eric Lewis and Magikraft Studios first released this they used a special custom holder which worked fine, however it did look a little more like a gimmick.  More recently they released a version using a custom made plastic wine glass.  The wine glass works just as well and looks less like a prop so that is the version you probably should look for.

This is what Martin Lewis says about the change: “My father, Eric Lewis, created the Comedy Come-Back Card and designed an acrylic houlette for use with it, wine glasses being too breakable. If acrylic wine glasses existed in his day I’m sure he would have used one. A wine glass and napkin are far more innocuous looking and lend elegance to the effect.”

It really is a very simple effect that has a wonderful impact on the audience.

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Wow what a stunning set of Passe Passe bottles and these are in immaculate condition.

When these were first released Richard Himber had multiple versions of Canada Dry effects, including: 

• Canada Dry Vanish,
• a Shrinking Bottles effect,
• a Diminishing Bottles effect and,
• a Passe Passe Bottles effect,

and they were often mixed and matched.  This is basically the Passe Passe set – it comes in the original red box but comes with no instructions. 

Because the bottles nest you could of course use it to vanish or appear a bottle.  As far as I can understand it Richard Himber paid a fortune for the moulds ($1,250 in 1947, about $15,000 today) and wanted to get as much out of his investment as possible.

The other nice thing about this set is that all tubes, bottles and glasses all nest into one small package.

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What a wonderful classic piece of magic from Tricks Co., very high quality chromed vase with a surprisingly large load chamber. They really don’t make them like this anymore!

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This is a very worthy attempt by Jim Sherman’s National Magic Company to create a card box as good as P&L’s stunning Ultra Perfect Card Box. 

My photos don’t really do it justice and every blemish and fingerprint seems to be emphasized, but  you can see how close Jim got.  If you compare this with the P&L there is almost no difference in quality at all.  Although I admit you can’t tell from the photos but if you saw it in person it looks nothing like as bad as the photos are showing.  The video was shot a day later and you can see how shiny the box is.  You won’t be disappointed I promise!

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Here is another clever beauty from Germany’s modern day micro-magic master craftsman: Thomas Pohle.  The basic effect is one where a freely chosen star disappears from one tube only to appear printed on a previously shown blank plaque.

But Thomas has put in some features to throw off the scent for magicians.  The vanish of the star is the cleverest part of this effect – if you watch the video after the star has vanished he then breaks open the tube and there is clearly nothing in there – no missing star.  If you think about this it really defies explanation and it will fool magicians and lay people alike.  Even the reappearance of the star on the blank tablet has a nice feature because not only can you show the tablet clearly blank on both sides it can be any one of the colors.

The two minor downsides with this effect are:

• Mechanically there is a lot going on and so much so that after making ten of these Thomas stopped production – the tolerances and effort were too much!  If you have one that is not a downside of course 🙂
• You have to spend some time practicing the disappearance and the appearance of the correct star.  But read the instructions, particularly the extra ones that Joe Long added for Thomas, watch the explanation video from Thomas, and spend some time with the props in your hand to really understand what is going on.  It reads more complex than it is and once you have played with it for a while you will be fine, but make sure to give it the time it deserves.

If you do, you’ll have a fooler that looks amazing. 

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Oh boy what an stunning beauty from Italy this item is!  It is a complete re-imagining of Magiro’s highly sought after Babuska by Ottavio Belli’s N8 Quality Magic.

Although the basic method is all Magiro the look and quality of the props, and the improved mechanism are all Ottavio.  This prop is a huge upgrade on the original and looks simply breathtaking.  Some times when Magiro’s items are redone, they loose some of their magic, but not so with this beauty.  This is just the right amount of ostentation and improvements to fully perfect Magiro’s masterpiece and if Magiro were still with us I’m confident he would be very pleased with this release.

This will certainly look perfect in your mini-magic collection and if you put in the practice to make it as smooth as Ottavio’s demo you will have an effect that will continue to wow them for years to come.

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