Magic – The Davenport Collection

Davenport Collection website e-news #11, September 2021

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E-newsletters like this one are sent out four times a year, highlighting recent additions to the website. If you’d like to be added to the mailing list, please contact the curator.

The September 2021 issue included:
– a 19th century dissecting drawer box.
– the Pipe of Wu Fang.
– the Watch Your Step “Unique Magic” children’s trick.
– a variety of jokes.
– Mickey Mouse and Lewis Davenport.
– optical illusions and optical surprises.

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Davenport Collection website e-news #2, February 2019

By John Davenport

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E-newsletters like this one are sent out four times a year, highlighting recent additions to the website. If you’d like to be added to the mailing list, please contact the curator.

The February 2019 issue included:
– Intermittently on the halls, a talk by Anne Goulden about Lewis Davenport.
– The first of 80 British Ring conventions, Cheltenham 1931, a talk by Roy Field.
– Noms de Theatre – stage names for magicians, a talk by Paul Freeman.
– a Gustav Fasola poster.
– Frederick Culpitt’s Doll’s House.
– Oswald Williams’ Noah’s Ark illusion.
– Production of a Ford car.
– The Friendship Clock – a gift from Punx to Lewis Davenport.

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Davenport Collection website e-news #1, September 2018

By John Davenport

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E-newsletters like this one are sent out four times a year, highlighting recent additions to the website. If you’d like to be added to the mailing list, please contact the curator.

The September 2018 issue included:
– Chevalier Ernest Thorn – “King of Illusionists”, a talk by Paul Freeman.
– 19th century Egyptian Hall programmes.
– Chung Ling Soo’s dove pan.
– Magic apparatus.

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Maskelyne and Cooke Provincial Company and Entertainment Bureau: 1899 Partnership Agreement – summary of main points

By Anne Goulden

To our knowledge the contents of this partnership agreement have remained confidential until now. The parties to the agreement were J.N. and Nevil Maskelyne (the Maskelynes) and David Devant. Devant was managing partner. The Maskelyne and Cooke Provincial Company made annual tours of Great Britain from 1899 to 1905. The Entertainment Bureau supplied high class entertainments for many years. There is much of interest in the partnership agreement and Anne’s article is a useful summary.

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Index to the ‘Demon Telegraph’, Davenports house magazine

By Michael Colley

Michael Colley’s index will be a boon to any serious researcher who wants to check on relevant material in the Demon Telegraph.
When Davenports first published it in 1933, the content was mainly advertising. It wasn’t until Issue no. 61, when the New Series started in 1942, that more articles were added. There were articles aimed at performing magicians covering tricks, bits of business and performance advice. The series of articles on ‘Old Timers I Have Met’ and ‘Programmes of the Past’ are of especial interest to magic historians.

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Phantom Penetration: glass chimney penetration by a playing card

The magician shows a stand on which is placed a wooden frame which has been shown to break into two across the hole in the centre of the frame. The magician hands out a card for examination and then demonstrates that it fits inside the frame, the hole in the card coinciding with the hole in the frame. The card is placed back on the table. The magician then shows that the glass chimney fits through the hole in the frame, where it is left in position and a silk handkerchief pushed through so that it hangs out from both ends. The magician again picks up the card and pushes it into the top slot in the frame. It should of course come to rest when it hits the top part of the chimney but, with the correct magic word, the card is pushed right through the chimney and handkerchief and down to the bottom of the frame. The apparatus can be shown all around. The final applause comes when the magician removes the top half of the frame and lifts out the card and chimney, showing that the card really is threaded onto the chimney.

With help from Chris Cross and Philip Treece, the inventor of this trick has been identified as Brian Godfrey. In the ‘Demon Telegraph’ of October 1933 (illustrated) the trick is advertised as Brian Godfrey’s PHANTOM PENETRATION. This is the first mention of the trick we have found. The trick makes use of a glass tumbler rather than a glass chimney. A few years later Goldston and Stanyon advertised the trick. In America, the same effect called ‘Improbability’ was sold by the National Magic Company and Sherms. They do not credit the inventor. The trick is written up in ‘Goldston’s Magical Quarterly’ of September 1935. Bob Albo describes the effect in detail in Volume III of his Classic Magic series.

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Carl Willmann’s box of apparatus for hand shadows

This box contains a large variety of shapes which help the artiste create interesting and complex shadowgraphy images. The contents of the box closely match the items described in Carl Willmann’s book ‘Handschatten-Spiele’. Towards the end of the book he lists various objects and says that ‘All items listed under No. 35 – 106 are packed together in a fine box Mk. 50—.’ This is the box to which he refers. Click View Details to see the additional illustrations of the book and the labels on the packaging of the objects. Some labels mention Bartl and Willmann and others mention Bartl, so at least some of the contents must be circa 1920. Also shown are three examples of the metal and composite objects alongside their illustration in Willmann’s book. From top to bottom, the three objects are: one of the hats for a happy couple; a trombone; a balcony with a bell which can be rung mechanically.

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Drinks menu from the Maskelyne and Cooke bar, London

This magically themed bar was at Le Meridien hotel, Piccadilly, London. It was very close to the site of the Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly, where Maskelyne and Cooke presented magic shows for many years.

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Lewis Davenport’s tiny Stanhope Lens

Lewis Davenport had this miniature lens produced showing a publicity postcard drawn in 1930 by George Cooke (who was not the Cooke of Maskelyne and Cooke). The miniature lens fitted into a ring and would have served as a novelty give away. When held very close to the eye, and looking through the lens towards a bright light, the image becomes visible. Details of Stanhope lenses can be found on the web. It is very hard to obtain a photograph of what is seen when you look through the lens. We wish to thank Ken Scott for the very clear image which is illustrated here.

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Cliff Townsend corks for cork penetration trick

British magician Cliff Townsend, one time President of the British Ring of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, had these corks made up as a novelty give away. Each cork has his name printed on it. Two corks are needed for a baffling stunt. The magician places one cork in the fork between thumb and first finger of their left hand, and the second cork in the same position of their right hand. The magician moves their hands together and then separates them, showing that they now hold each cork between thumb and finger, but this time the cork that was in the left hand is now in the right hand and visa versa. It looks so easy but when someone else tries, they find that the corks lock together and it is impossible to separate their hands.

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