How far back does the BALL AND VASE go back? Did Tarbell ever do it? Have you ever seen a professional magician do it?
I saw my first ball and vase around 50 plus years ago and I still see them for sale in magic sets.
Jeff

I believe it goes back a lot farther than you think.

I think it was mentioned in "Recreations Mathematiques et Physiques" which dates back to 1693. No doubt it was also around a long time before that.

The history of Magic tricks fascinates me. Wouldn't it be great to have a room here at the Café that handled just inquiries such as this. Within time we would build up a comprehensive history of many effects.

You may be interested in the Magic Lineage Project.

Simon

The "Oldies but Goodies" section serves this purpose fairly well. Unfortunately, the historical aspect of magic as well as the collecting aspect is fairly much a niche market. A very small percentage of us are really interested in that.

A precursor to the Ball and Vase, called the Globe Box, shows up in H. Dean. So the trick has been around for hundreds of years.

Surprised it's not done with an egg instead of a ball.

In H. Dean, there is also a mention of the egg box as a variation on the Globe Box. My edition is a fairly late one, though.

The copy of Sports and Pastimes I have, has the first references to the trick performed with a ball as well as an egg box. It also contains the first coin hank and fart powder. There are also several practical jokes such as putting bits of soap into a butter churn so that the victim would churn all day and never make butter. It contains a couple of chemical and drug references, such as drugging and capturing blackbirds.

Only 200 copies of the reprint exist. Counting the two originals, there are 202 copies total. I saw one sell at $150 and one at $75. I know someone that has a copy for sale, but I would not sell mine.


I think it’s copied from a text around 1450 or so, I would have to look at mine to be sure. Scotts’ is the same timeframe.

Most books from those time periods did not survive.

Would be nice to have a copy transcribed from the Old English to modern text.

No one has mentioned Mike Skinner's pro routine with the B&V (and I think Ed Marlo had a handling).

I used to use some clever sleights when selling them in a magic shop 60 years ago... but the trick is older than God.

Tiny bits of wax inside the S**** can help make some ball hops nobody is expecting.

Whenever you think the word S**** also think of wax.

Pete, where do you get Skinner's version? Is this the one with the marble vase?

I was working a hospitality suite for a paint company a while back, in San Antonio. They went to Berkie's and bought a bunch of tricks for giveaways. Among them was the Ball and Vase.

I took two of them and copped the ball out of one, which I placed in my pocket. Then, I was able to accomplish miracles with this little trick.

If you know basic cups and balls and simple sleight of hand, you will be able to figure out what to do.

I improvised and had the gilpins hopping over this one.

I use the ball vase. A few years ago, Curtis Kam mentioned that he knew a few magicians that also used it, albeit they use large versions (I use a pocket version).

As far as I know, there are three professional routines out there: Mike Gallo, Michael Skinner and Ed Marlo. Skinner's version is on one of his videotapes and in his book; Gallo's in Richard's Almanac (Nov 83); and Marlo's is in Arcade Dreams.

I have two fairly large ones, turned from wood. Also, I have one that's similar, but shorter, and has a hollow ball and two silks (dark red to match the balls and gaff), along with the regular ball and gaff. The stem is hollow on that one...for the production of a silk...nice.

They're from India. They look nice sitting on my TV, with a Crystal Ball in the middle, between them. Seems everyone knows how it's done, so they're just ornaments. Too bad.

P.S. What'd I do, go and kill THIS topic, now? Sorry!

Doug