The Eng Sung Enigma: Resolving a Riddle for the Chinese New Year!

 Last year, in celebration of the Chinese New Year, we were proud and pleased to bring you a post about Chen Ting Soo, showcasing a vintage throwing card and featuring a genuine Chinese-American magician.  This year, with the same holiday approaching, I turned to a card recently added to my collection featuring "Eng Sung - Chinese Magician."  The piece is a keepsake, featuring a handsome portrait of the performer and an absolutely wonderful graphic of a levitation illusion.  I started to wonder -- Who was Eng Sung?  Little did I know that my curiosity would ignite a fast and furious debate among significant members of the throwing card blogosphere, that quickly and conclusively resolved a mystery.

Deploying the powerful "Ask Alexander" tool, I could only find three articles containing a reference  to Eng Sung, all three of which described the very same performance at a 1934 convention of the Keystone State Federation of IBM Rings. So, whomever Eng Sung was, he didn't perform for very long.  Or, I posited, at least it was an assumed name that some magician only used for a short time.   The reporting contained little detail about his performance, other than to place him on a bill with a number of better-known performers, including Burling Hull, Max Holden and LuBrent.  And then there was the emcee....more on him in a moment.

Could this be the same fellow pictured
on the Eng Sung card?

In studying the card, I noticed was that "Eng Sung" did not appear to be Asian, but, more likely, was part of the then-popular, insensitive tradition of a Western magician playing the role of a Chinese magician.  (On these pages, you'll find references to several such performers, including Chung Ling Soo, Chang,and  Okito.)  This led to the suspicion that he likely performed under one or more other names.

Because the card provides no other information about him -- other than the photograph -- there wasn't much to work with.  But that picture, it seemed to me, was familiar.  It reminded me of a photo of another performer on a card for Namreh the magician, seen here.  Namreh was one stage name for Herman Weber (1900-1953).  "Namreh" is Herman spelled backwards.  And then I looked back at the performance reports .... Herman Weber was the emcee for the only show at which Eng Sung had been recorded as appearing.

"Rice, Rice, Rice" -just one of many Asian-themed
effects that Herman Weber published.  

Could the two be one and the same?  I was quickly able to convince myself of the viability of this theory.  Weber had written quite a bit about performing "Oriental" magic, and included some in certain of his programs.

He had assumed other characters -- like Namreh -- who performed in devils robes.   And the more I looked at the pictures of Namreh and Eng Sung, the more I grew convinced that they looked the same.

So I did what I often do when I need more material for magic research: I turned to our friend Jay Hunter.  I was hoping, most of all, that Jay could come up with another throw-out card featuring the same "Levitation" back, which, if it was for Herman Weber, could close the deal.

Jay dug into his extensive collection, producing a remarkable quantity of material in a very short period of time.   The materials he gathered about Herman included the wizard offering "Oriental Mysteries" and performing in different characters and costumes.

The levitation graphic in a book
authored by Herman Weber.

And then Jay found what I thought would be the silver bullet: he found the "Levitation" graphic, not on a throwout card, but in a booklet published by Weber!  And, Jay added, he had seen this graphic nowhere else.  While he expressed interest in my theory, he had his doubts as to whether the two men appeared to be one and the same, and raised some concerns about the ages of the performers pictured compared to certain biographical facts.

So we called in the rest of the Propelled Pasteboards team.  Tom Ewing -- our resident expert on Pennsylvania-based magicians -- advised that, unbeknownst to us,  he's currently working on a book about Herman Weber, having come across a trove of materials on the Allentown native.   While he had not come across anything about Eng Sung, Tom confirmed that Weber was an exponent of Chinese-themed magic, devoting half of his stage show to that style of performance.  Tom liked the theory, but thought we needed to do more work on the question.  He supplied a vintage ad for the sale of Namreh's show, reproduced here, which makes it clear that a large portion of the show was devoted to  "Oriental" magic.

Enter Gary Frank.  Using nothing but his keen powers of observation (which could perhaps characterized as superpowers) Gary provided a point by point facial analysis of the Namreh and Eng Sung cards -- too long to reproduce here -- that included details such as the "flow of contour" of facial characteristics, "cupids bows," hairline shape, etc.   Suffice it to say that Mr. Frank concluded they were different fellows.  An Internet based facial recognition program into which I fed the two photos reached the same conclusion.  Everyone was sold that my theory was wrong ... even though I continued to hope.

Based on the evidence we had assembled, Mr. Frank theorized that they were pals and knew each other, and he focused on a critical clue: the initial reports of Eng Sung's performance noted that one of his assistants was someone named "Miss Snyder."   Using this clue, I was able to formulate more Ask Alexander searches.  And this time, I hit pay dirt.  Herman Weber did indeed have a pal named Edgar Snyder, who had acted as Weber's assistant at one time.   Reports also noted that Edgar Snyder's wife was an accomplished magician's assistant.

Armed with this new fact, I found our man: Eng Sung was Edgar Snyder (d. 1970), who also hailed from Allentown.  He was specifically identified as such in several magic magazines, but never spelled correctly: writers listed him as "En Sing," "En Sung" and even "Yen Sen."  These misspellings explain why initial searches didn't turn up his identity.   Having completed the record, it turns out that Snyder has a fairly long career in magic, performing a s "Eng Sung" during the 1930s, and later moving to Florida and becoming an officer and important organizing force in the S.A.M.

Here's one description of his performance as "Eng Sung" from the Linking Ring in 1933:

"Then came Edgar Snyder (En Sing) of Allentown, doing Oriental Magic, using large Chinese Blocks, and a production silk act from large tube, finish- ing with a 30 foot silk banner. He also used a new idea in Chinese rice bowl. Mr. Snyder's apparatus has been decorated by a real expert in Chinese art."

Oh, and just as "Namreh" is Herman spelled backwards, Snyder left us a similar clue: Eng Sung and Ed Snyder both have the initials "E.S." 

Lung-Fat-Loki – A Familiar Looking Face

I have had this throw-out card in my collection for a long time.  If the dealer who sold it to me knew what I know now, he might have kept it.  The name was not familiar to me at all.  When I attempted to do any research on this magician, I came up empty.  Absolutely nothing. The face did look like someone I had seen however.

Around the time of the “Columbus Magi-Fest” for 2017, I had the honor of hosting Gabe Fajuri of Potter and Potter Auctions at my home.  While going through my throw-out card albums, Gabe saw this card, pointed to it and told me, “That’s Okito”.  I was amazed, as I had no idea that it was Okito since he was using a name I had never heard before.   But, if there is anyone out there who is knowledgeable about the identity of magicians of the past, it is Mr. Fajuri.   Thank you, Gabe, for alerting me to this fact.

I then set about again to research Lung-Fat-Loki  from the angle of Theo Bamberg, Okito’s real name. While I have not been able to find any mention of Bamberg ever using this name, what I have discovered is thought provoking none the less.

The magician’s magazine “The Sphinx” for August, 1909 writes that when Okito was on a tour of China, he felt the need to change his name to “Lung Tchang Yuen” as Okito sounded too much like a Japanese name.  Looking through the “Linking Ring” for April of 1949, shows us that he even had a poster created using this name with the caption, “The Builder of a Chinese House of Mystery”.  Now the Lung-Fat-Loki card uses the caption “The Builder of a Chinese House of Mirth”.  A coincidence?

Comparing the image on the Loki throw-out card with the image on the poster of Lung Tchang Yuen seals the deal for me that what we are looking at here is another alias for Theo Bamberg.  Since I can find no other references to Lung-Fat-Loki  anywhere in my available resources, I can only assume that maybe he tried out this new name just long enough to have this interesting throw-out card made.

There is as much mystery in these little cards, as there is in magic itself!

Senator Clarke Crandall

Clarke Crandall was born on April 23, 1907. In 1947, Clarke participated in the Society of American Magicians convention in Chicago. This was one of the first times audiences had the opportunity to enjoy his dead-pan expressions, droll patter, comic thoughts, and his whole act fit nicely in his banjo case (oh, there was no banjo). At one point of his life while he was living in Chicago, he was working as a stock hand possibly as a buyer of cattle. It was said magician Johnny Paul approached Clarke in the 1950’s and offered Clarke a job as a bartender/entertainer.

Shadows on Groundhog Day

"Yes," as Bill Murray famously uttered, "it's Groundhog day . . . again . . ."  And what better day to consider the venerable art of shadowgraphy.  I'm cheating a bit here, because this is not a throwing card, but a postcard that was formerly in my collection (more on that in a second),   But this piece, which features Eduard Rickard, a/k/a Edward Bamberg, is so very special, beautiful and appropriate for today that I couldn't resist.

Rickard (1889 - 1951) was the brother of  Theo Bamberg, more famously known as "Okito," and part of a renowned magical family.  This piece displays one of the magical novelties for which he became famous, shadowgraphy -- the creation of magical illusions through hand shadows.  It was a novelty that became quite popular during the vaudeville era.  This card was autographed at an IBM-SAM convention in 1951, shortly before Rickard's death.

If you think that shadowgraphy sound like an antiquated diversion that could not hold sway with contemporary audiences, then you have not seen it performed by a master.  Leland Faulkner, who I was privileged to see at the most recent Yankee Gathering, can hold an audience spellbound with his remarkable, full-body performance.  And if you don't believe me, then see for yourself.   Below is a video link which will give you some sense of the magic of his captivating shadows.

Because Lee is a collector of all things related to shadowgraphy, from which I assume he has drawn inspiration for his fine act, I'm pleased to report that this card now resides in his collection.

So, even if the groundhog doesn't see his shadow, you can spend a few minutes seeing Mr. Faulkner's.

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Theo Bamberg aka Okito

Tobias "Theo" Leendert Bamberg (1875 – 1963) was born in Holland. His father had been a court magician to King William III of the Netherlands. Tobias was the sixth member of the Bamberg dynasty. He designed a Japanese-styled act before he was twenty. Using an anagram of Tokio (Tokyo), he became known as “Okito”. He altered the show to a Chinese-style act with more people and elaborate effects. Bamberg appeared before the Prince of Wales, and toured England, Ireland, and Scotland. His tour included thirteen countries in Europe as well as the Balkans. He and his family moved to the United States in 1908, where he toured under contract with the Orpheum Circuit. In 1909, he and his partner opened the Bamberg Magic & Novelty Company in New York City.