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I'm not a magician as such, but a love of Magic tricks as a child, lead me on to special effects, and film & TV special effects is what I now do for a living. I inherited a cardboard box from my grandfather passed on from my mother around 2010. It contained the some total of his father's (my great grandfather's) magic collection. For the most part, it's little magic tricks from around 1934 to the early 1950s, but only some of the material has dates on. So much of the paper material is falling apart now. As far as I can tell, the oldest thing in there is a wooden handled rubber stamp, with Arrowsmith on, dated 1892. As far as I recall, my great grandfather and his parents ran a shop, and this would have been passed on from that.
I remember playing with much of this stuff as a child, along with new magic tricks I bought at the time, which is why they were passed on to me. I also remember as a child in the 80's, buying some new tricks, which were virtually identical in technique, but updated versions of some of these. I specifically recall having the money maker roller trick which was made of red plastic, rather than the wooden one here, and a fake thumb cover with a handkerchief in it, which was rubber rather than metal, and of course the set of magic rings. It just goes to show, a good magic trick in the 1930's is still a good magic trick today. I do the Mystery Coin Box trick every now and then, along with catching people out with the fake box-camera with the sprung snake inside!
When I was originally given the collection, it were just in a plain cardboard box. I wanted to finally give them a more fitting permanent home which I made in July 2018; a wooden chest. I've figured out what most of the items are over the years, but there is still about 20% or so, is either incomplete or unfathomable. Most of it is magic related, but some items are exactly as they appear, like the pocket watches & pipe paraphernalia. Most of the paper material is pretty tatty, so I'm keeping all that in a protective display book so I can still look through it easily. There are some parts I know I'm missing, I have only two of the magic rings for instance.
Ellisdon & Son Magic Mail Order Catalogue - 1940 (48 Pages, 266mb - 182mm x 229mm at 600dpi 85% compression JPEG)
One piece was always a favourite of mine to look though; the Ellisdon & Son magic mail order catalogue from 1940. Its crammed with little ads for tricks, puzzles & jokes. Although the cover is pretty tatty and it's not in the best condition, I have scanned and uploaded it above. You can see detailed photos of the collection below. With the exception of photo 030 (which are items I've added in to the collection since I got it), everything else is original, save a few items I might have got as a child. There are a number of tricks and puzzles below, which you'll find listed in the above catalogue.
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