5 Stars

This effect is based on a an old children’s toy of the 1930’s: “The man in the barrel”. Others, including: Eddy Taytelbaum, Fred Kaps, Ken Brooke, Herbert Martin Paufler, Tony Lackner, Vienna Magic, and more recently Francois Danis, have also created effects with the same basic principle.

A wonderful classic piece of magic from the great German master Tony Lackner.  The little guy just sits there headless and alone until the chosen card is waved over him then he jumps out and impales the card!  Visually great and surprising to the audience! 

This is what it says in the ad copy but in fact it is a little misleading.  The body of the man is placed inside the barrel and the magician holds the head above and at the appropriate time the head is dropped onto the card causing the body to leap out and trap the card between the body and the head.  If you look at the advert from the Ace Place to the side you can see how the head is held in the hand even though it clearly says in the ad copy: “the magician is pushed down into the barrel where he remains with just his head sticking out of the top.“

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When Jim Simon of Worth Magic (before Milson-Worth) created the Astro-Ball Cabinet c. 1965 it caused quite a stir because Jim basically took Phase 1 of Stewart James’ Sefalaljia which was a ground breaking five phase routine when it appeared in issue 69 of The Jinx December 2, 1939. As Stewart James himself said in an interview with Jeff Busby in 1987: “I expect the originality in that version was the use of a cocktail glass.” Ouch!

Even so, the Astro-Ball Cabinet became one of Worth’s and later (this one) Milson-Worth’s most iconic and successful effects. The cabinet looked stunning and the effect was amazing with little effort on the part of the magician.

This is the rarer Black and Gold version – the more common version is the Red and Gold seen here.

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This is Jack Ruda’s finest hour 🙂

The smaller version was called The Temple of Goo, a hand-crafted gem that quickly became a favorite among collectors. Jack created three versions in the smaller size: the first had just 3 places in the cabinet to place Goo and was know as The Temple of Goo Fong sold by Ron Allesi as a limited edition of 50 units. The second version which was the better of the two was slightly larger with 4 choices.  The third was the same size but used a remote control unit to turn the device on and off. 

The version on this page is the much rarer and much larger Temple of Goo Two. This is a stage size version with 4 choices and a separate base and completely different electronics. 

Only three of these were made and they were custom made with a wait time of at least six weeks. This is the only one I have actually seen.  It is a big and bold item and unlike the smaller versions there are no external switches to turn on and off (or separate remotes) and the device to let you know where Goo has been placed is not part of the main Temple at all, but cleverly concealed in the base that supports the statue of Goo at the beginning.  The pedestal and the Temple can be at least 30 feet apart (that was as far as I tested it) so you have a lot of freedom with the revelation.

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This beautiful effect was invented by Carlton Bradford and built and marketed by Frank Klein c. 1978.  When I first saw this in 1980 at the IBM convention in Brighton, England I fell in love with the amazing little Plexi-Glass box.  But I didn’t get to own one until almost twenty years later in 1998 🙂

There were actually four different versions of this effect released by Frank Klein:

1. Miniature Zig-Zag in wood c. 1978
2. Miniature Zig-Zag in stunning Plexi-Glass c. 1988
3. Enhanced Miniature Zig-Zag c. 1992 (this had the extra feature of the lifting the flap in the center section)
4. Ultimate Miniature Zig-Zag c. 1994 (a choice of three cans could be chosen)

To my mind the difference between the Enhanced and the Ultimate was almost a backward step since an extra couple of moves were required that bought you very little, and even when I performed the ultimate (which had no structural changes to the cabinet) I still stuck with the original single Coke can effect and ignored the option to have a can chosen. 

It is easy enough to change the beverage should you want something different.  When I last performed this in c. 1998 I only drank Coke Classic, but a few years later I switched to Diet and haven’t drank Classic since so the first thing I did when I pulled this out was change.

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Here we have another beautifully made item from Carl Williams and the latest addition to my collection in the Okito-Williams series of effects. Carl has meticulously recreated this beauty from the original prop made by Okito c. 1933 all the way down to the transfers used on the original boxes.

Okito added the box and the automatic wind-up mechanism (which Carl faithfully follows) and it makes performing this effect about as easy as it could be. The butterfly looks amazingly realistic with not much practice at all. The key thing with this effect is timing – my video went on a little long, but I am still happy with it. Hope you like it too 🙂

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Richard Himber’s Thought Control is an idea that has been copied many times over the last 65+ years since it’s release. But the original still provides one of the cleanest methods to have any card freely chosen and then have the prediction handed to the spectator for them to open. This is made from “Cashmere Cowhide” (whatever that is) but it feels like a very soft and fine quality leather 🙂

If you have a Himber Wallet and Thought Control in your arsenal you could handle 80+% of all your wallet needs, all from one man 🙂

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There have been at least four authorized versions of the wallet produced that I have seen (and probably plenty more unauthorized ones):

1. Original c. 1975 – (3 7/8″ x 7 3/4″) – R.A.R. Magic.
2. Version 2 c. 1982 – (4″ x 8″) – R.A.R. Magic – this is the one John Mendoza had.
3. Version 3 c. 1985 -(4 3/8″ x 7 1/4″) – R.A.R. Magic – first release of Bendix Bombshell routine book,  this set the mold for future wallets.
4. Version 4 c. 2010 – (4 3/8″ x 7 1/4″) – Martin Breese and Tony Curtis – updated release of Bendix Bombshell routine book.

This is Version 3 c. 1985 complete with The Bendix Bombshell booklet.

Here are a few details that I have been able to piece together (mainly from Roy Roth’s account here) of the early days of development of the Bendix Bombshell:

Ed Brown created the Window Wallet c. 1975 and a routine using it was published in Kabbala Vol.3, No. 1, January 1976, called: Between Elmsley, Brown, and Himber.

The Window Wallet was the inspiration for a number of great card men including, Ed Marlo, Dave Solomon (using Ed Brown’s own wallet), Jon Rachenbaumer (Talismanic Card in Wallet – Lecture Notes 1, 1976) , and Dave Bendix to create some wonderful Card to Wallet routines.  The second you see the the diagram on page 1 of the Kabbala article you will recognize the familiar set-up for the special Himber wallet that we recognize today as the Bendix Bombshell.

In August 1975,  having seen Ed Brown’s wallet (even before it was published in Kabbala), Dave Bendix wrote to Roy Roth of R.A.R. Magic asking to have a special wallet created and by December 1975 Roy had delivered three wallets as promised to Dave, who gave his spares to Ed Marlo and Dave Solomon.

Dave Bendix gave exclusive rights to Roy Roth to create and market the wallet and the first ads for, the Roth named, Bendix Bombshell appeared in Abracadabra December 27, 1975 – the early versions even included routines by Ed Marlo and Dave Solomon.

As far as I can tell the big change to the Window Wallet that Dave Bendix came up with was the addition of the zipper and the layout of the slots such that it could facilitate the easy retrieval of the chosen card from inside the zippered compartment. These beautiful changes in combination with the other ideas of the original Window Wallet – in particular the amazingly clean switch – make for such a satisfying effect which is probably why so many great performers like the Bendix.

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A really pretty set of Himber rings from David Regal made in plated 18K gold which not only look beautiful they function 100% smoothly. At this price point they are a great deal for sure!

David had a second run of these made in 2019 and they were identical to the first 18k Gold Plated set without the custom box and printed bag, just plain box and bag.

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This is the first time I have seen this amazing effect which is Classic Nick Ruggiero ingenuity. You have to wonder how he came up with the idea and the unique brass gimmick to make it all work so well. When Rich Bloch and Nick were cooking they created some truly unique items at Misty Morn Farm 🙂

I know The Ring Thing was released after the first catalog (c. 1987) and before 1991 (because I have a Ron Allesi newsletter advertising a used one in March 1991). But I could not find any advertising anywhere for it and by the time the second catalog was released (c. 1996) it was nowhere to be seen. It is strange it was not continued because it seems to work very well and is certainly unique. It might be a little daunting when you first see the props. But a quick study of the well illustrated instructions (six pages) with the props in hand will quickly make you an expert and you will see it is actually very straight forward.

The set-up from scratch takes about five minutes for one card but you could easily prepare a bunch and you could get the reset to about a minute.

Apart from the cool brass mechanism this uses I love how you freely hand the deck to the spectator and they can open up the deck to find their actual ring hanging from their chosen card. And then they need a pair of scissors to remove the ring as it is glued on so tightly 🙂

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