“NO PRACTICE REQUIRED”: SEWELL’S CABINET OF CONJURING TRICKS, A COLLECTION OF 11 ACTUAL MAGIC TRICK APPARATUSES

SEWELL, Ernest. Cabinet of Conjuring Tricks. (London): [Ernest Sewell], (1933). Original cardboard storage case with individual compartments for 11 trick apparatuses, mounted cover label. $850.

Vintage collection of actual apparatuses for 11 sleight-of-hand parlor tricks, including “The Hindoo Slave Bangle,” “The Nail Through The Finger,” and “The Disappearing Cigarette,” accompanied by instructions pasted to the lid, as well as a separate booklet (in two editions) containing seven additional tricks.

Master magician and ventriloquist of the 1920s and 30s, Ernest Sewell, who entertained the likes of the Royal Family, branched out from performing magic to publishing collections of actual magic-trick apparatuses. He eventually produced such unrelated games as Tiddlywinks and its spin-off Tiddlytennis. By the late 1940s he was running Europe’s oldest continuously-operating kite company, Brookite, founded in 1906 by two brothers who peddled their kites at English beaches from a motorcycle. Sewell’s main interest, however, was always magic. This fine collection of parlor tricks includes special cards, rings, false-bottomed cups, cylinders and trick match-boxes.

A superb collection of wonderful original trick apparatuses.