5 Stars

This was originally invented and sold by Clint Riedel as the P.M.C Livestock Vanish. It was based on a suggestion by Walt Landis and the first ones were advertised c. 1939.  Riedel also manufactured them for U.F. Grant and it was renamed the Dagger Livestock Vanish c. 1960. It was also manufactured later still by MAK Magic. It is sometimes attributed to Grant, but Clint Riedel was the inventor with no significant changes made by Grant.

This beauty was created by Michael Baker and it looks fantastic. Even from a short distance the livestock appears to vanish with no trace to its whereabouts. You can even turn the box upside down and just hold it up by the dagger running through the box.  With the correct lighting it is also possible to tip the box showing a view from the top the the box is very clearly empty as seen in the photos.

A very convincing prop without a complex internal mechanism or anything to go wrong or wear out.

It can be used to vanish or produce livestock or a large load of silks and anything else that fits.

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Here is another item released by Prometheus Studios and sold by Stevens Magic.  He looks a little goofy but that is part of this little guy’s charm.

The mechanism works very well and the method is more reliable than you would expect because Prometheus use a combination of the pins with magnets embedded inside the pins – I’ll say no more but it means that as long as the spectator sticks the pins somewhere in or near a red cross you will receive the signal.  Also another nice feature of this item is that you don’t have to take out the first pin to register the second (or indeed the third) pin.

There are no hints of electronics used and no on/off switches on the doll.  The small receiver fits easily in any pocket to accept the transmissions via vibrations. If you look at the head under his mop of hair you can see a tiny USB hookup for charging however, you would not be giving this out to examine per se merely to place the pins in the desired location.  Unless you were really looking for something you wouldn’t find anything.

I really like this item – reliable, cute and amazing 🙂

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One of my favorite effects as a teenager!  I remember being blown away by this after I received it from Ron MacMillan’s International Unique Magic Studio. This of course is better known as Lubor Fiedler’s Dice Shocker (or sometimes: Shock Dice, Shock Die), it is a true beauty and very startling to watch.

It was sold by Supreme c. 1969 and Tannen’s c. 1970 and they were purchasing directly from Lubor Fielder in Austria. It is not the same as Lubor Wurfel or Lubor Die which is another name for Gozinta Die or Boxes.  The original versions from Lubor were much nicer. I saw a later version from Tannen’s recently and it was nothing like this quality.

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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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