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12-C Maine Antique Digest, May 2015
- AUCTION -
J
ohn Paul “J.P.” Jackson (1937-2013), collector and go-to
guy on magicana, became fascinated with tricks and props
as a child, but it was a long time before he could afford
such a fine piece as a checker cabinet with the trademark Ori-
ental decals and detailing of Tobias “Theo” Bamberg, a.k.a.
Okito. The box, whose 1940s price tag was about $125, sold
for $12,000 (includes buyer’s premium) at a February 7 auc-
tion of Jackson’s collection at Potter & Potter in Chicago.
“The buyer flew in from Texas,” said Gabe Fajuri, auction
house president. A50-year collector, the buyer called the Okito
piece the “holy grail of magic collecting.”
Estimated at $7000/9000, the checker cabinet was the mid-
dle size of the three sizes of the transposition trick made by
Okito, who went deaf as a child and initially wondered how
he could perform without
speaking. His father sug-
gested dressing and acting
as if he were from Japan,
leading the audience to
think his silence was due to
a language barrier, Fajuri
said. Okito took the dis-
guise a step further, elabo-
rately decorating his tricks with hand-painted Asian symbols
and scenes, making them distinctive even though the details
often could not be seen by the audience. The red box with the
pagoda-style roof had the original checkers, tube, and glass-
ware but lacked Okito’s brass plaque or wood stamp. Still, it
was known to have been built in Chicago around 1947. The
same box had been sold previously by Potter & Potter, but it
went for more this time.
The cabinet drew the highest bid of the 473 items, about 400
of which were from the collection of Jackson. Several other
objects netted considerably more than their estimates. Fajuri
was pleased with the results on a cold, wintry day in February
in Chicago but was hesitant to say they meant anything more
than that the magicana market “is doing just fine.” Two items
didn’t sell.
Eugene Burger, a magician, teacher of magic, and author,
bought a folding table he intends to use primarily as decora-
tion and observed that prices realized at the auction were more
in line with estimates than at some previous sales where they
went higher. He doesn’t classify himself as a collector, saying
instead he occasionally buys “memory lane stuff,” those items
he admired when he was younger but couldn’t afford.
Fajuri called it “absolutely crazy” that the
Encyclopedia
of Impromptu Magic
sold for $570, way over the estimate of
$100/150. Although out of print, the book by Martin Gardner
is not hard to find, he said, and was part of a large collection
of books that Jackson amassed over the years as he doggedly
pursued the history of the props and apparatus he collected, as
well as instructions on how to use them. This was particularly
important as many of his items were known to have unique
modus operandi.
What was described as a “lifetime
archive” of instruction sheets,
routines, and other printed mate-
rials of both English and Ameri-
can magic from the 1940s to the
1960s sold for $1920, within the
estimate. An assortment of more
than 60 tricks and novelties from
S.S. Adams, whose products Jack-
son’s father had brought him in
childhood, sold for $570, at the
high end of the estimated range,
probably because many were
in their original boxes with
instructions.
A long-bladed knife, made
to look as if it sliced through
an arm protruding in a wooden
stock, sold for $1140 (est.
$500/700). The carved cutter
was made by Ed Massey and
described in the catalog as “deceptive in design and delightful
in execution.”
Die boxes are a standby of magicians, leading Jackson to
seek out as many versions as possible. His die box to drinks
was one of 15 made by Arthur Culpin of England. The trick
involved the die disappearing into a hat, then into a box,
and when the lid was pulled back, a cloth-covered “table”
appeared set with miniature cocktail glasses. The black box
with silver handles sold for $2040 (est. $700/900).
The subtle distinctions of a Martin cage or Fox rabbit pan
drove Jackson to collect enough to fill a two-story house in
California. But such props are not necessarily where today’s
30-somethings are putting their money, Fajuri said. “J.P.
wanted one of everything. Younger collectors now buy one
Potter & Potter Auctions, Chicago, Illinois
Okito’s Checker Box Brings
$12,000 in Magic Auction
by Kay Manning
Photos courtesy Potter & Potter Auctions
The buyer
called the Okito
piece the “holy
grail of magic
collecting.”
The hand-painted checker cabinet by Theo Bamberg, a.k.a. Okito,
sold for $12,000 (est. $7000/9000).
The interest in a photograph of French
magician Alexander Herrmann was sur-
prising to Fajuri. It sold for $5760, way
above the estimate of $1500/1800. The
cabinet card portrait was signed on the
back by Adelaide Herrmann, and she
presumably also wrote “Herrmann the
Great / 1875” on the front.
Unusual craftsmanship went into a vanishing bird-
cage, designed by Jon Martin of London. He was
a watchmaker who secretly created tricks for
illusionists, until he was discovered and began
making them more publicly. This round-top
cage made of collapsible Dural aluminum
contrasts with most, which were square,
and it added to the magician’s difficulty
in making the bird disappear up a sleeve
or down a pants leg. It sold for $4320 (est.
$1500/2500).
Die boxes are a standby of magicians, lead-
ing Jackson to seek out as many versions as
possible. His die box to drinks was one of 15
made by Arthur Culpin of England. The trick
involved the die disappearing into a hat, then
into a box, and when the lid was pulled back, a
cloth-covered “table” appeared set with minia-
ture cocktail glasses. The black box with silver
handles sold for $2040 (est. $700/900).
Pulling rabbits out of hats is de rigueur
for magicians, but Paul Fox created a spun
brass rabbit pan with claw feet in which
flowers and sugar were lit with a match.
When the lid was placed on the pan to
extinguish the flames and then pulled
off, a live rabbit appeared. The trick,
accomplished by the lid’s having space
in which the rabbit was concealed, was
unusually sophisticated because the pro-
file of the domed lid didn’t give away the
compartment. The set sold for $1320 (est.
$500/750). The tray is 22" x 12".
The
Magical
Card
Cabinet,
made by Mar-
tinka & Co., New
York, circa 1905,
sold for $2880
(est. $400/600).
A card-vanishing pistol, a
real gun repurposed to be
wound and to suck a card
inside when the trigger is
pulled, went for $1560 (est.
$700/900). It was the first
that Gabe Fajuri, president
of Potter & Potter, said he’d
seen in a case.