While not excruciatingly remarkable, this effect of a dollar bill enlarging itself to one about four times its original size can be used in a number of combinations other than by itself. It lends itself to one of those "incidental" presentations which often are remembered when the trick in which a bill was used has been forgotten. All magic shops and novelty stores now carry the giant size dollar bills in quite good replica. We are not certain about other countries, but with the novelty at height in America it seems probable that pitchmen and grafters in England have similar…
Recently we saw a small model of this trick performed and wondered why it might well not be resurrected by present day magi who desire something pretty and different. Our first record of it is in 1911 and apparently invented by a Mr. Albert Russell. It found a good spot in the program of Theo (Okito) Bamberg. The performer shows a cylindrical glass tube container standing on the table. With it are (1) a cardboard cylinder which loosely fits over the "hydrometer tube", and (2) three tumblers, each filled with a colored liquid, red, white (clear), and blue. The glass…
If the magicians who read these words spend an evening period of two hours to make up the required gimmick combination, plus an additional hour or so of steady practise in making the fans required, provided they don't already have them mastered, they'll be in possession of a really new and quite startling routine to be used at almost any time during their program. The modern deck of cards obtainable now in the five and ten stores have a wide range of ornamental backs. These are of such odd designs that they allow of at least four entirely different patterns…
For the mystery lover who wants a close up effect away from the general run of things, this oddity should fill the bill. Four white squares of pasteboard are used. Each is about an inch and a quarter square and they may be cut from standard index card stock, or even by cutting a couple of business cards in half. Squaring them together the performer takes from his pocket an ordinary ticket punch with which he deliberately makes a hole through the center of the squared up pasteboards. One of these is given the watcher and he's asked to pick…