Puzzling Pierson, the Wisdom of Petronius and the Yale Divinity School

Having long ago acquired one of Puzzling Pierson's throwout cards, pictured here, I featured it on ThrowingCard.com, without much information of value.  However, access to increasingly more powerful research tools, as well as some old-fashioned shoe leather, permits me to tell you a great deal more about this charming piece, an unglazed card with square corners and an optical illusion Deland back.  The back bears a copyright date of 1907, making this a century old piece of magicana.  The face bears a Latin phrase, attributed to Petronius, "Mundus Vult Decipi Decipiatur," meaning "The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived" and also graces Martinka magic tokens of this era.   The face design really packs it in: the unique imp-devil character, hand with wand, linking rings, appearing bird cage and fabulous font make for an exquisite example of throwing card art.  (Another variant of this card -- which I've seen but do not own -- features a steamboat back.)

Well before his first appearance in magical literature,  George Pierson, a/k/a Guy H. "Puzzling" Pierson (b. circa 1879) is mentioned in the quarterly journal of the Yale University Divinity School, which describes him as a prestidigitator who entertained students on St. Patrick's Day, 1911.  It is in the same publication that we learn of his day job -- for the previous ten years, he had served as assistant superintendent of the Divinity School's buildings.  Less than a week later, the Yale Divinity News reports, a Professor Macintosh offered a sleight of hand demonstration “in imitation of Pierson” as part of a “Faculty Stunt Night.”  By 1917, Pierson began reporting New Haven's magical happenings in the Sphinx with an occasional feature called "Pierson's Paragraph."  In 1923, he helped organize this effort by forming a magic society headquartered at the famed Petrie Lewis company.

In 1947, The Sphinx ran a wonderful autobiographical piece about this performer.   In it, Pierson describes his early influences in magic, including a seminal trip to Martinka's, a friendship with its proprietor, and his acquisition of a copy of Professor Hoffmann's Modern Magic. "In my day we could not buy or hear anything about magic, especially in small towns," he reflected.   "We started with a chair round with a brass tack stuck in the end for a wand and a deck of cards,a few tin cups made by the local plumber and a home-made table with music rack legs. But suddenly the Great Mysto Company sprang up in New Haven and we began to get some good magic."  In 1949, he wrote a reminiscence about traveling medicine shows and the opportunities they offered magicians for The Sphinx, which elicited published comments by Augustus Rapp a few months later, and in 1950, he did a similar reflection on early travelling magic shows.   The last reference I can find about him was a performance mentioned in M*U*M in 1958.



Not satisfied that I had unearthed everything I could about Puzzling Pierson, I packed one of his cards with me on an early 2017 trip to Ray Goulet's Magic Art Studio, figuring that, on a well-attended Saturday, one of the assembled experts on New England's magic history could tell me something more about him. Well, I didn't find a subject matter expert, but among the many treasures there, I found something equally interesting,  Perched near a Spirit Clock, I spotted a cabinet-style card with a photo of Pierson.   In the photo, he's posing next to a small tripod magic table covered with vintage magic equipment, including a large ghostly chronometer. The Clock in the picture appears to be a different one than the one in the shop, unless, as one of the wags present noted, Pierson made the numbers change to Roman numerals from beyond the grave!

A second Pierson variant from Gary Frank's collection.

For anyone who might be interested, I have a duplicate Puzzling Pierson card in my collection which I'd be happy to trade for something of similar vintage.

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"