Dreaming of a Dan White Christmas: The Magician at the Nomad Hotel

An intriguing invitation

Theory11's Nomad Magician Deck

Imagine, after receiving a mysterious invitation, that you are walking down New York's Fifth Avenue, festooned with holiday decorations, on a brisk December evening.  You step out of the night air into the vestibule of a luxurious hotel, the kind featured in film noir detective movies.  You're greeted -- in a sense -- by a barefoot, pretty young woman in a diaphanous white dress.  She doesn't speak, but moves, as though in a trance, handing you a few playing cards and gesturing toward a lushly carpeted stairway.  More cards litter the stairs, and the hallway above, leading you,  like a trail of breadcrumbs, into a Victorian-era parlor decorated with posters from the golden age of magic.  After a few minutes, a mysterious old man enters, moving slowly onto the stage.  After he types a short letter, he places it into a battered chest,  which he hangs from the ceiling.

And the show hasn't even started yet.

Welcome to The Magician, one of New York's hottest shows.  Tickets to the event literally sell out in seconds after being posted on the web.  (The only reason I got so see it is that my wife endeavored for months to get tickets -- they were an amazing Christmas present!)

The star at the center of this mysterious universe is Dan White, an eminently likable and remarkably talented performer.   Though he performs in a 19th-Century setting, lit with Edison bulbs, he's as 21st Century as they come - a cool, funny, hip, irrestistable young performer.  During the course of the show, Mr. White proves himself to be a powerful mentalist, an adept cardician and an admirable illusionist.  This seemingly intimate show -- set in a parlor-style setting with a small audience -- packs an oversized punch.  During the proceedings, Mr. White literally read my mind, correctly divining a personal fact about me that he could not have learned by any ordinary means.  Indeed, his method -- about which I can only speculate -- appears to have been so extraordinary as to recall the legendary effects of the great Max Malini, who went to unimaginable lengths to work miracles.

Dan White (center) together with your
 reporter and Linda, who got the tickets!

So what does Mr. White offer during The Magician?  Well, dear readers, that is where my story ends. I will not reveal the marvels that await those lucky enough to get tickets, as it would be akin to spoiling the ending of an intricate murder mystery.   Because what Dan White performs during this show is, by and large, like nothing you have ever seen.  There are moments when it seems like he's employing  a traditional bit of magic -- like, say a Bank Night routine or a Himber Ring -- but then this fine performer twists it into something so very marvelous that it defies every expectation.

And through it all, he remains so affable that he holds the audience firmly in his grasp.  There's none of the smarmy "I'm smarter than you" approach to magic that has plagued our art for generations.  If you want to get a feel for his style, take a peek at this video of Dan White working with Jimmy Fallon:

This is fun, fresh, different and utterly mind-blowing.  If you're in New York, just go.

Courtesy Kardify.com

And now to the cards!  There's a whole deck of them, produced by Theory11 specifically for the show, and available at the theater and online here.  The folks at Theory11 poured their considerable artistic vision and skill into this pack.  It may be the most sumptuous deck of cards you'll ever hold.  In the photos, you can see the unbelievable tuck box, a custom Ace, the intricate back design and the marvelous Joker.  Try to get your hands on a deck before they're gone.

Stage magic has experienced a kind of renaissance in the past few years.  A wave of offerings by a group of rising stars, such as Mr. White, Derek DelGaudio, Helder Guimaraes, Harrison Greenbaum and Derren Brown have injected energy, intelligence and originality into magic, revitalizing it as an art form in the digital age.   With performers like these out there, we can expect even more amazing things to come.

A Merry Christmas Throw-Out Card from Jay Hunter and Charles Arbuthnot III

[Having read my recent post about Al Munroe which decries the scarcity of holiday throwing cards, our friend Jay Hunter picked up the throwing card gauntlet, dove into his copious collection and came out with this wonderful item.  So here it is, just in time for Christmas and the Magical New Year!  Thanks, Jay]

A Merry Christmas Throw-Out Card

by Jay Hunter

This throw-out card from Charles Arbuthnot III wishes everyone “A Merry Christmas” and “A Magical New Year." Arbuthnot, who went by “Arb” was born on September 1, 1888 in Pittsburgh, PA. He was a past president of the Pittsburgh S.A.M. assembly and contributed to several magic magazines. Something he had in common with Judge Brown of this particular website is that they were both Yale University alumni, with Arbuthnot graduating in 1912.

Arbuthnot worked as the vice-president of a floor covering business, and was dubbed by The Linking Ring in 1942 as "the exemplification of a gentleman,"  who "has injected a higher intellectual level into our art."  Arbuthnot, who became interested in magic in 1939,  contributed effects to most of the periodicals of his day and assembled a large, valuable magic library.  His contributions were highly desired by magic editors of the time.

Cartoon from Linking Ring
article re: Arb's purloined book

One of the interesting stories about Arbuthnot derives from his interest in magic literature.  Arbuthnot always carried a leather bag with a copy of Greater Magic, a then recently-published tome containing effects penned by numerous prominent magicians of the day.  Whenever he met one of them, Arbuthnot would procure the autograph of the particular contributor on the page where his effect appeared.  In February 1942, at a magic event in Tampa Florida, the book - by that time laden with signatures and quite valuable -- reportedly disappeared.  Arbuthnot offered a hefty reward for its return, purportedly to no avail.  In April of that year at a Pittsburgh magic event, an Indianapolis-based mindreader identified only as Sir Edward (real name: Ramon La Rue) offered readings of sealed questions.  The Linking Ring reports as follows:

"Among those present was Charles Arbuthnot III, whose valuable auto­graph book vanished February 17 during an affair held by Tampa Ring 13, International Brotherhood of Magicians, at the Roosevelt. On his card he had written a question that even his offer of a liberal reward had failed to answer, "Who stole my book?"
Mr. Arbuthnot can't explain it— and as far as this skeptic is con­cerned, you can write your own answer—but when the sealed ques­tion was held to the blindfolded
mentalist's ear, he said, "Your book will be returned to you at 10:30 to­night." At 10:35 a Western Union boy walked in and handed Mr. Arbuthnot his autographed "Greater Magic" book."

Arbuthnot died on January 2, 1951. 

The image on the face of his card is a small photo of himself that has been pasted on. The back of the card is a blue Fox Lake design.

Happy Holidays from Al Munroe, "The Man Who Muddles Magic"

Regular readers may recall that, last year, we featured a holiday-themed throwing card from Bill Wagner.  Well, the season is upon us, again and, frankly, there doesn't seem to be many Christmas throwing cards.   But don't despair, as I'm able to offer you something quite close -- a 1939 holiday postcard from Albert Foster Munroe.   And it comes with quite a story.  

In 1944, The Linking Ring described him as a "newspaper­man, magician, magical editor, col­lector of conjuring memorabilia, historian, an expert chef, and a grand friend and companion."  He was born in Fall River, Massachusetts on  January 24, 1893.  His father was a watchmaker an avid amateur magician, exposing Munroe to numerous top professional performers -- like Kellar and Leon Herrmann -- throughout his childhood.   After he became an award-winning newspapers writer and manager of the Detroit Times, he regularly rubbed elbows with the leading magicians of his day, and built a huge collection of programs, letters, and related memorabilia, covering all periods of conjuring history, along with a tremendous magic library.

Combining his talents, passions and collection, he produced what has been called "magic's most un­usual magazine" known as Al Munroe's Magi­cal Miscellany.  In terms of production value, it was a sorry affair: a dittoed publication with a limited mailing list.   But for its recipients, it was a prized possession because of its remarkable content, and would become most sought-after by collectors in the decades to follow.  It was issued irregularly (seven to ten times per year) at no charge to approximately 100 magic enthusiasts.  In 1949, the Sphinx described the Miscellany as "perhaps the most unique (and subscriber-prized) publication to emerge from a basement composing room," noting that its  "reader also must bear with sporadic outbursts of bad verse, comments on world affairs and illustrations that argue well for compulsory art education." 

So what was the attraction?  According to Robert Lund in The Sphinx:

The self-styled "Man Who Muddles Magic" began his publishing venture "as a joke" in the spring of 1943. The "joke" has since become a treasury of fact and lore on the lives of lesser-known wand wavers. Munroe's interest in things magical is all inclusive, but his greatest delight is in searching out the history of the hundreds of little-publicized performers who never quite reached the top of the bill. A Boswell of the unsung, his pioneer research along this avenue has attracled national recognition. 

Thinking about it, Munroe's Miscellany was a free publication penned by an amateur historian obsessed with extracting obscure details about little-known figures in the history of magic from his collection of magic memorabilia.  Hmmm.... sounds a little like the blog you're reading right now!

The good news, for those who are interested, is that several modern compilations of the Miscellany are available, including one on PDF.   The most recent offering comes from the good people at the Conjuring Arts Research Center, the same folks behind the all-important AskAlexander research tool.   Their compilation, a mammoth, high end production that has been professionally laid out, with a transcription by David Roth, contains:

Almost 600 pages of fascinating stories on a variety of topics including: Harry Kellar's beard, T. Nelson Downs, waffles, The Wrestling Cheese, the intriguing story of the sailor and the baboon, Herrmann, Frikell, Eugene Laurant, Silent Mora, Dr. Elliott, and much more...including some of Al Munroe's favorite recipes!

You may want to put that on your holiday wish list!

Happy Holidays from all of us at Propelled Pasteboards, and best wishes for the New Year.

Phantom Base Ball: "The Finest Magicians' Advertisement Ever Known"

Ad from the Sphinx, 1908

One evening, while searching for something completely different in AskAlexander, I came across this wonderful advertisement from the Sphinx published in 1908.  In that ad, a Philadephia firm called the M. Lewis Company, exhorting magicians to purchase "the finest magicians' advertisement ever known."  Hyperbole aside, M. Lewis was attempting to entice practitioners to acquire, at the cost of $3 per thousand, blank faced playing cards bearing this interesting illusion-back design.  The card offered the possibility of spinning the card to make the "Phantom Base Ball," printed slightly off center, appear to jump to the center of the disc.


Since the "Phantom Base Ball" ad appeared, to my knowledge, only once in a single magazine, and I had never seen such a card, my hopes for finding one (if one ever existed) were slim.  Of course, in discounting these chances, I once again underestimated the remarkable collection curated by, in the aggregate, the contributors to this blog and their many kind friends and associates.   This time it was Gary Frank to the rescue, searching his extensive holdings to produce a gorgeous exemplar:

While M. Field's claim that the illusion back is "the finest ever known" cannot be fairly evaluated, it is certainly a fine, striking back. Like many throwout cards, the vivid, intricate back design is of a far higher quality than the face.  The card promotes Marque, a magician about whom we've been able to uncover nothing, other than to note that like many traveling performers of the period, Marque used The Billboard as a permanent mailing address.


I'm not sure what to make about the manufacturer's concerns about "Bugheads" claiming to have invented this illusion, or the biblical references that follow, other than to conclude that, even in 1908, the illusion was nothing new.  But we certainly can speak to its staying power.

The illusion featured here is one of many "spinning disk" illusions that were and remain popular ways to distort visual perception.  Similar designs can often be found on grafted onto spinning tops or yo-yos.

While there are all kinds of variations of this illusion, a very similar design appeared on the face of several throwing cards, including one for Manfred Scholtyssek as well as another card for the magician Topper Martyn.  Manfred Scholtyssek (1927-2008), publisher of “Zauberkunst”, the magic magazine of the former GDR, which Scholtyssek produced after political change in Germany. The Martyn card, seen here, has an aviator back which may have been produced by Haines House of Cards. The Scholtyssek card came as part of the collection of the Swedish Magic Archive.

Package for Tenyo Moonspinner Illusion

While discussing this card with enthusiast Lee Asher, he pointed out the similarity of this illusion to that incorporated into Tenyo's Moonspinner paddle illusion.

Ray Goulet – A Remembrance

On October 7th of this year, my dear friend Ray Goulet passed away after a long string of health-related issues. With his passing the magic world at large lost a wonderful friend, a talented magician, magic historian, and an all-around good guy. Among the many magical collectibles he preserved and treasured were scaling cards and his collection was impressive. It’s only fitting then that one of the remembrances given away at his viewing was a scaling card of sorts.

There were many different varieties of these cards at the viewing and all featured photographs of Ray (and often his loving wife Ann) in various stages of their magical lives. The one featured here shows a younger Ray on one side standing in front of Ask Alexander and Sorcar posters in his Mini Museum of Magic. The reverse shows an older Ray holding a proclamation with a smiling Ann in the background and a Jack of hearts index on each corner. 

Ray was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts January 20, 1930, and was a lifelong resident of Watertown. He often said that the real magic in his life was when he married his sweetheart and lifelong friend Ann M. Ford, in Saint Patrick’s Church October 12, 1949. They were married sixty-eight years. 

In a feature in the Boston Globe a reporter wrote, “For 40 years, Ray Goulet was the master of card tricks and illusions, vanishing and reappearing eggs, and a snake in a basket that could find a card chosen by an audience member. With his wife Ann, he created a traveling show and performed on 22 trans-Atlantic voyages, including once for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He made eggs disappear at the White House during the annual Easter Egg Roll in 1984.”

Magicians all knew of Ray and Ann through their Magic Art Studio at 137 Spring Street in Watertown. It was the center of the magic universe for the Boston area and much of the greater northeast. It is also the location of his Mini Museum of Magic which still contains wonderful magic treasures collected by Ray over his lifetime. It was Ray who approached me about being the master of ceremonies for the New England Magic Collectors Association (NEMCA) and I was honored to be asked. 

Although his responsibilities lessened in recent years with these bi-annual events, he was always the driving force behind its international success. 

I must tell you of the remarkable viewing that took place the day before his funeral. With Ann’s permission, photographers from the Joyce Funeral Home gained access to the Mini Museum and took high-resolution digital photographs of the walls and cases. Then they projected them on the entire back walls of the funeral parlor where Ray lay in repose. It was a stunning visual experience because it gave every one of the hundreds of friends attending the viewing the sense that it was being held within the walls of the museum which he loved so dearly. On video screens around the two rooms, a continuous loop of images of Ray and Ann with magic friends played.

Ray, of course, was very active in the Society of American Magicians and as is customary, a Broken Wand Ceremony was conducted. However, as with all things, Ray put his special touch on this somber ritual. After the text was read and it came time for Ray’s wand to be broken, and after the following words were read, “Compeer Goulet, when you were initiated into The Society of American Magicians you were presented with a Wand, Ancient Emblem of Mystery. It symbolized the Magic Power that was yours as you used your knowledge of magic’s secrets, and your skill in their exemplification. Now its power is gone. It is a mere stick, devoid of all meaning and authority, useless without your hand to wield it.” 

At this point it is customary to break the wand. However, it was announced that Ray had chosen instead, to pass his personal magic wand on to his dear friend Ryan Lalley who helped run Magic Art Studio and who cared so deeply and did so much more for both Ray and Ann. It was one of the most touching things I’ve seen during these rituals and I have done many of them.

The following day a funeral mass was held at Saint Patrick’s Church, the same place he married Ann many years earlier, and then police literally closed down Watertown as a funeral procession of mourners drove first past the Magic Art Studio where a large memorial flower arrangement covered the door, and then past Ray and Ann’s house where neighbor’s waved Ray goodbye from their porches. Finally it wound its way to the cemetery where friends laid roses on his casket, a representative of the military played taps, and as everyone filed out, a recording of Frank Sinatra singing “I Did It My Way” played.

I will close this tribute to dear Ray with this line from earlier in the Broken Wand ritual that always moved me emotionally. It goes, “We shall miss Ray and we shall remember him. And no greater tribute can be paid to any person than this; to say that he lives on in the hearts of his friends!” He certainly does and will continue to do so for many years. Memorial donations may be made to Saint Jude’s Children’s Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105 or online at www.stjude.org.

Theodore DeLand's Got Your Back!

Deland's "Watch the Dice, 6 or 7," on the backs of throwout for J.W. Wilson, Puzzling Pierson and Lightner

As part of our continuing study of throwing cards, we have often stressed the importance of examining a card's back to provide added insight as to it provenance, manufacture, and approximate age. And if you look a enough magicians' cards, it will not be long before you notice one or more with this intriguing design, produced by Theodore DeLand, an eclectic, prolific magic card manufacturer in 1907. It's called "Watch the Dice, 6 or 7," and it's a terrific negative space illusion: Rotate the card 180 degrees and the number of dice in the stack appears to change.




Another unusual aspect of these cards is the manner in which they were created.  Unlike the various cards we've discussed which were sold as blanks, such as the Roterberg Stock Card and the Bamberg Magic Card, or cards that were professionally printed on both sides, to create these backs, DeLand sold printing blocks to allow magicians to create them on their own. I was fortunate enough to be able to add one of these rare printings blocks for the "6 or 7" back to my collection.   That block, seen here with a Puzzling Pierson card back, is in beautiful condition, and I suspect it was never really used.  It bears the emblem of the S.A.M. embedded in the design.

Gary Frank was able to provide me with one of the ad cards that DeLand used to sell these printing blocks.  The "Advertise Yourself" copy was printed on the face of playing cards with printed images of the three backs for which they were available.  Price: three printing blocks for $1!  (I paid much, much more for mine, even when adjusted for inflation.)  One of those three designs, obviously, was the "6 or 7" back.  In addition, I believe a second one was the "Dollar Deck" back, seen below as well as on the reverse of the promotional card used by McDonald Birch.  The third may have been the Daisy Deck back, though we have been unable to locate a throwing card with that particular design.

Jay Hunter was able to turn up something else: The M. Lewis Company, the work of which will be discussed in another post, advertised the DeLand "6 or 7" printing plate in the Sphinx in 1907.  Interestingly, as seen in the ad reproduced here, Lewis sold them for $1 each, offered with or without the S.A.M. emblem engraved in the circles in the design.  Lewis suggests having the corners rounded like a playing card, or square like a business card, and notes that it had a "large supply on hand."

Jay also kindly prepared an array of cards sporting the "6 or 7" back, printed in four different colors, both with and without the S.A.M. emblem as well as with rounded and square corners:

So who was Deland?  Well, according to Magicpedia, "Theodore DeLand (1873-1931) created the phenomenon of packet tricks between 1906 and 1915, during which time he marketed almost 100 tricks using gimmicked cards and decks, many of his own unique creation. DeLand was a clerk at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia and died in an insane asylum in Norristown, Pennsylvania."   That snippet hardly captures DeLand's unusual story; for many years, Richard Kaufman has been working on a biography, DeLand: Mystery and Madness, which is expected to be released soon.

And while DeLand did not have a throwing card, many of his decks and effects included signature aces, which are quite interesting.   Several are seen below, which Mr. Kaufman helped me identify.

Ace of Spades from original Deland Dollar Deck
(later printed by S.S. Adams)

Ace of Spades from Deland's "Twister" trick

Ace/Three from a DeLand effect called "Pickitout"

Harrison Greenbaum's Stuck on You!

There's just one problem with Harrison Greenbaum's magic performances: he's just so funny that you're likely to forget -- or miss -- the subtlety and sophistication of his conjuring.            

But more on that in a moment - first I need to cover today's unusual offering.  The item depicted here is not a throwing card.   It is is business card-sized, but it is not a business card.  As its purveyor would likely shout in a mock-enraged stage rant "It's a sticker!"  And so it is.  For collectors, such an item should be highly sought after, as it is so very ephemeral (fans tend to apply and discard stickers, making them rare).   Showcasing a sticker is unusual without being unprecedented here:  we featured a sticker on the Bamberg page.

A second aspect of this keepsake also renders it unusual for its inclusion here: it makes no mention of magic.  Accompanying the genial portrait, the front reads "This is Harrison," followed by two notations "He does comedy" and, on the reverse "He likes you too."    The reverse lists a variety of social media references which have become so very important for contemporary performers, (which we'll examine in a subsequent post about Jeff McBride) particularly one that, like Mr. Greenbaum, offers more than 600 performances per year.  

And just like this collectible, Harrison Greenbaum defies easy categorization.  As a visit to his site, harrisongreenbaum.com, confirms, Harrison defines himself primarily as a comedian, which is where, unquestionably, he developed his performing chops. According to his bio, he began performing stand-up comedy while studying psychology and English at Harvard (a fact he often cites self-deprecatingly as part of his performances). A summa cum laude graduate, Harrison was the co-founder of the Harvard College Stand-Up Comic Society.  And he is a superlative comedian, featured on NBC's Last Comic Standing and America's Got Talent.   

Make no mistake, though, his conjuring skills are equally impressive.  Clues to his magic pedigree can be discerned from his bio -- he won an award at Harvard for his magic book collection.  Indeed, he maintains a separate magic website which includes the following magic credits:

Harrison offers his vision of the Mental Epic by Hen Fetch.

"As a magician, Harrison was named one of "today's best" by Newsday and tours around the world as one of the stars of The Illusionists: Direct from Broadway, the biggest selling magic show in history. The most requested performer at Monday Night Magic, the longest-running- Off-Broadway magic show in New York, Harrison has also performed at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, the Mystery Lounge in Boston, and was one of only 30 magicians chosen to perform at the International Festival of Magic, Illusion, and the Unusual in Louisville, Kentucky. He is also the proud winner of the Senator Crandall Award for Excellence in Comedy, given out annually at Abbott’s Magic Get-Together in Colon, Michigan. Harrison is a counselor at Tannen’s Magic Camp and has been an advisor to the Society of Young Magicians in Boston and New York for almost a decade."

At a recent performance at which he was the headliner, Harrison offered sophisticated, complex and beautiful magic pieces, accompanied by his frenetic comedy.  His set included some classics, such as his unique twist on the Mental Epic, a flawless and funny newspaper tear, a bizarre and hilarious add-a-number routine and a celebrity prediction that still has me scratching my head.  His effects were thematically linked in a nuanced way that nearly escaped my notice amid his razor-sharp wit, performing energy and gales of laughter.

At one point,  Harrison unleashed a sticker upon a particularly quirky audience volunteer (a man who claimed to be from Australia, Los Angeles and New York, and who proved incapable of describing his very strange job).  The spectator was clad in a tee shirt featuring a portrait of a snarling tiger.   The performer produced a sticker, peeled it and pasted it over the tiger's face.  "There, see, now it's not so scary!  My sticker helped," he quipped, in a tone of faux-derision, but belying the performer's efforts to not break out laughing.  "It's a picture of me, not of that scary tiger!"

After the show, Harrison let me in on his plan -- which he has since shared with his fans via a posting -- to have his fine portrait made into a lapel pin, and was choosing between the following designs:

Harrison explained that these can be produced at a modest cost.  When they come out, I'll want one!

I first encountered Harrison at Monday Night Magic, a permanent magic venue founded by my friend Michael Chaut.  In creating Monday Night Magic, Chaut was able to accomplish what others -- including top performers from magic's heyday like Houdini and Carter the Great -- could not: he established a permanent venue for magic in New York City.  Monday Night Magic has been running for more than two decades, powered by the energy of performers like Greenbaum.  Just a note to those in or around New York City, and those planning a visit -- go see Monday Night Magic.  If you check the schedule, you might catch Harrison Greenbaum there!  You won't regret it!

_______________________________________

Postscript - December 2017

After sharing this post with Harrison, he kindly send me one of his new pins, hot off the press (and, in his words, that's assuming that lapel pins are made on presses!).  It's a terrific keepsake.  Take a look:

The card on the left is a business card on which the pin is mounted over his face!  Thanks again, Harrison!

The Mahatma Mystery Solved!

Advertisement appearing in Mahatma in 1895.

From 1895 through 1906, Mahatma, the first U.S. newspaper catering to magicians, was published at Martinka's magic shop in New York City.  Another thing Mahatma published, as indicated in the print ad seen here, were "Playing Cards With Your Advertisement Printed on Them," at a rate of $1.50 per thousand or $6.00 for 5,000.   These ads appeared from time to time in the periodical's decade-long run, but alas, without ever including any images of the cards.

Ad from 1905

The first reference I encountered about cards printed by Mahatma was the June 1944 article by John Mulholland, which is excerpted on our Back Story page.  "Scores of magicians had cards made with a back design, 'The Mahatma' magazine had
drawn," Mulholland wrote. "This design pictures a number of different pieces of magical apparatus." Mulholland did not provide an image of this unique back design created by the folks at Mahatma.   I began thinking about the dozens of cards we had posted here on Propelled Pasteboards, but it was difficult to think of any that fit Mulholland's description . . . except for maybe one.

Indeed, my leading suspect was the back that I've referred to as the Roterberg Stock Card  as they were sold by dealer August Roterberg.  Examination of the back, as reproduced here, proves consistent with Mulholland's description: a custom-drawn back picturing various magical apparatus (including fans, birdcages, funnels, wands, hats, etc.)   And given that the ad for these cards appears in Roterberg's catalog circa 1915, the timeline seemed to fit.

But that was just a suspicion.  Before I acted on it, I decided to consult our friend, Jay Hunter.  In what seemed like minutes, Jay responded with an email containing images of throwing cards featuring the Mahatma backs in two colors.





























How can be be sure that Jay is right?   Well, just look closely at the design -- there's a signature: it says "Mahatma,"  As for the faces of these cards, they bear advertisements for magicians named "George Heller" and "M. Roberts."  Their stories will await another day.

But a third Mahatma card from Jay's collection sheds just a bit of light on another mystery.  Regular readers may recall the elusive Geo. Heir from our discussion of Bamberg Throw-Out Cards.  If you'll recall, Heir was one of our dedicated Men of Mystery, about whom we have been unable to locate any data even with the help of Ask Alexander.   Well, Jay found another Mahatma card, this one featuring Mr. Heir:

So, with that card, we add another data point to Mr. Heir's profile: he hailed from Jersey City, N.J.  That may lead to more....

Of course, only after Jay cracked the case, I found an ad for Mahatma cards with an entirely different "Mahatma" card back.   See below:

But before we leave the issue of magic magazines printing throwing cards, there's one more thing I'd like to cover.  In researching this piece, I happened across another ad -- this one in an old copy of The Sphinx from 1902, featuring nearly the exact same ad, this time attributed to The Sphinx rather than Mahatma:

Apparently, Mahatma wasn't the only magic magazine moonlighting in the throwing card business.  And if you'd like to see one of these backs on a card, check out the Leon Herrmann posting!

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Postscript: After reading this post, my co-contributor Gary Frank dove into his wonderful collection and turned up three more of these wonderful cards.  The story of these performers will await another day... but meanwhile, now appearing on Propelled Pasteboards are the magical styles of M. Roberts (whose back design appears above), Marvill and Burton the Magician.

Loring Campbell

Alexander Loring Campbell was born on March 19, 1905 in Sapulpa, Oklahoma where in just a few short years, the senior A.L. Campbell and his wife Byrd closed the drug store, packed up their belongings, and had their son comfortably set up in the back seat of the family car for the long trip to Southern California. Loring’s first exposure to magic was watching a group of Japanese performers known as the Ten’ichi Troupe of magicians. It wasn’t long after that Loring tapped by the “Goddess of Magic” and she didn’t let go.

    

  Whether it was entertaining classmates, or working a summer performance in full make-up in a polka dotted suit being billed as “Cambello the Clown”; Loring was fulfilling his destiny to become a full-fledged, professional magician.

After his schooling, Loring captured the attention of the managers of the Redpath-Horner Chautauqua circuit. He was contracted to work a twenty-five week tour. The only condition he had to agree to was being billed as magician Jack Gwynne. Gwynne wasn’t able to complete his contract and it was too late for the management company to alter the advertisements that were in the hands of every place Loring was to perform. So, taking everything in the old adage “the show must go on”, Loring Campbell was “Jack Gwynne”.

 

 A little known fact in magic history was when in 1929, Howard Thurston was searching for “one more traveling company” to take another one of his sponsored shows out along with his own show, and the Dante and Tampa show; Loring was also in the running. He readily declined, just as McDonald Birch, Werner "Dorny" F. Dornfeld, George Marquis and  Jack Gwynne. This time, Thurston has decided the name for the magician under the Thurston banner would be "Faust the Magician". All declined for the similar reasons; they wanted to keep their name and they their own performance style. When the International Brotherhood of Magicians was founded, Loring joined and was member number twenty-two. He did all that he could to find more members to join this newly established society of magicians wherever he traveled. Loring wasn’t alone in this life adventure, his wife Kathryn was at his side working in the show, on the show, and keeping the show going for many years. Kathryn kept the bookkeeping details kept the rabbits fed, and made sure Loring was on top of his game wherever they performed.

    

They toured throughout the United States dozens of times. Audiences and managers alike praised their magic shows. Loring included numerous effects from sleight of hand, to a presentation of the guillotine, and he would also include escapes. Their two-hour show would change every year and Loring would keep in touch with magic dealers and include whatever the latest effects were popular. He would also update his brochures and posters making sure he would keep the attention on the idea of fun for the entire family. 

          

How could you pass up

seeing this show?

 

      

       

       Whether Loring was performing his noted ventriloquist act with his sidekick, Johnny Applewood, or he stepped up to the artist’s easel and created wonderful rag pictures for all to enjoy; Loring had found his life’s dream and it did come true. He was a member of Los Magicos of Hollywood, Society of American Magicians, and he was a member of the Hollywood Comedy Club. 

           Loring wrote a column for the Tops Magazine titled “The Campbell Caravan” that was enjoyed by all its subscribers. He was elected into the Society of American Magicians Hall of Fame. Loring wrote two books This is Magic in 1945 and Magic That Is Magic in 1946. He retired from the stage in 1955. Kathryn passed away in 1958. Loring continued his interest in magic always there helping other performers and keeping in touch with magic friends he had met for the many years he was on the road. Loring passed away on January 11, 1979.