The Mystic Isely and “Anti-Gravico”

When I start to do research on a given throw-out card, sometimes I find next to nothing on the given performer. Other times, the search leads me down different paths that I did not expect, but makes for a more interesting story. I think this is one of those stories.

The throw-out card for John H. Isely is a Bridge sized playing card with an interesting illustration on the face, and an orange, black, and bronze design on the back. Isely has the wording “Magic and Theatrical ENTERPRISE” below the illustration. To say that Isely was enterprising, might be a bit of an understatement.

John H. Isely was born in the last years of the 1800’s in Baden Switzerland. Like countless others before him, he developed an interest in magic at a young age. He came to America sometime in the late 1920’s. (Some references have conflicting dates on this.) He and his wife settled in Cleveland, Ohio and Isely started doing magic around the local area. It was said that his full-time job in the thirties and early forties was working in a local novelty store as a demonstrator of magic tricks. It was called “Jean’s Funny House”. I actually have a token in my collection for this business.

Isely, who called himself “The Mystic Isely”, also marketed magic effects and ran ads in the magic magazines of the day. The one effect he struck gold with and that he became known for was a little trick called “Anti-Gravico”. He started advertising the trick in 1944. Here is the description of the trick in a magic catalog from 1945.

This trick became so popular, that it was named the years’ “Best Pocket Trick” of 1945. It can still be purchased to this day and can be found in some magic sets for youngsters. Because of its popularity, knockoffs of the trick began to appear, produced by others wanting to cash in on the effect. Because of this, Isely ran this ad in The Sphinx for December 10, 1944.

It can be assumed that Isely made a fair amount of money from “Anti-Gravico”. When he passed away on June 1, 1974, one obituary in a magic magazine stated; “John was a magical inventor as well as a performer, and will be best known for his invention of the ‘Anti-Gravico’ gimmick”.

Hold on a minute! There is more. As the late radio broadcaster Paul Harvey used to say, “And Now, The Rest of the Story!’”

John Isely never invented “Anti-Gravico”. In an article that the late Stuart Cramer wrote for The Linking Ring in April, 1985, Stuart set the record straight. The trick was actually invented by a local Cleveland magician named Bob Andre. He invented the trick in the early forties, and everybody wanted it. Isely tried to get Andre to sell the effect to him. In 1943, Andre went into the U.S. Navy during World War II. Before he left Cleveland, he had lunch with Isely and Isely tried so hard to get Andre to sell that “he had tears in his eyes”. Andre caved in and sold the rights to the trick to Isely for the money Isely had on him at the time, twenty-four dollars. The only condition Andre made was that it be called “Andre’s Anti-Gravico”. Isely kept his word, sort of. For the first month, the ad he ran for it looked like this.

In a very short period of time however, Isely dropped any mention of Andre as being the inventor. Not everyone in magic at the time was as misleading about giving the proper credit. A Sterling Magic catalog in my collection from 1945 appeared this way.

Over the years, there has been an effort in the magic community to make sure proper credit is given for the originator of a particular magic effect. I am happy to report that with articles to set the record straight by writers such as Stuart Cramer and magic historian Robert Lund, Bob Andre is now remembered for giving us this popular magic trick.

Don’t get me wrong. John H. Isely, the subject of this post was well liked by his peers in magic, according to what I found on him in the pages of the magic magazines. It did seem though, that maybe he was a little too enterprising when it came to giving credit in the marketing of “Anti-Gravico”.