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Listing a whole lot of estate magic finds -- most vintage and hard to find collectibles, and many excellent performance pieces, too. No time to give a full detailed listing, but look at the pictures, and message me if you have any questions. My magic storeroom is overflowing, so I need to sell this stuff. Check out all my auctions -- if you are bidding on multiple items, please wait to pay -- I will send you reduced shipping invoice on multiple items, and I am happy to hold while you still shop our listings. (But once you pay, I need to ship the product per eBay standards. So wait to pay until you finish shopping/bidding. Thanks!)
This item is very cool -- eight hand-painted "Daisy" tiles (each about 3/4 inch square), with different numbers on the other side. The tiles are mixed with the numbers downward, and (as the magi turns away) a spectator chooses a tile and remembers the number. The tile is replaced and the tiles are again mixed, and then the magi turns back to face the spectator. Using a pencil or his fingertip, the magi taps each tile, asking the spectator to mentally spell out his number, one letter for each tap. When the spectator is done spelling the number he remembered, the last tile tapped is turned over, and it is the same number! Instantly repeat-able.
This concept and method have been applied to many similar effects in the past -- this particular set of props is particularly deceptive (but does require good light and good eyesight to perform.)
These props are described by Louis Histed in a late 1964 column in Abra magazine -- the original pages from that magazine are included. Histed mentions that his set of tiles was given to him by Edgar Shackleton "twenty-five years earlier". This set of tiles looks exactly like the illustration on the magazine page -- it is possible that this set of tiles is the same set that Louis Histed owned, but more likely that someone read this column in Abra, and made a set for their own use. If someone else made this set (and it is not the original Shackleton/Histed set), the person duplicated the design elements with painstaking accuracy! That said, I am not representing this set as a Shackleton set from the 1940's... just that it looks exactly like one.
This effect will seriously puzzle lay people, even if the method is simple and the process is a bit contrived.
My online research could not find any other examples of this trick, or additional info beyond what Histed shared in his column. Certainly a rare vintage magic collectible, from the 1960's or maybe earlier.
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