I finally ran across a book I was looking for some years. As many of those that read my posts, know I have performed "Was My Face Red" by Bev Taylor for over 50 years. I heard that a book was published covering Town House Magic and the owner / owner's Bev Taylor and Don Lawton, but could not find a copy very easily. Well, thanks to TrickSupply.com , that had purchased remaining stock of the Hank Lee inventory, he finally listed this book on his website.

This is a really great book for those that want or like to build their own props. There are not a lot, but the Rol-Along Table, Sucker Bunny Box production, Deluxe Visible Block Penetration workshop plans are worth the price of the book alone for those that interested.

Bev Taylor was a magic dealer and manufacturer, and he made the Phantom Tube and other production tubes for magicians. What I notices was that most of his tubes were small in size. This seems to be what is even being made today when it comes to Phantom Tubes and multiply tube production items. I always considered "small" as beginner magic. Just something to sell the new person to magic. After all, I was around when U.F. Grant made tubes 10 inches tall and 4 inches in diameter. You could actually produce a large number of silks for a grand production.

In a trick Bev Taylor manufactured and sold as T.H. Television Tubes routine by Don Lawton, it was expressed a reason for the small tubes. The reason makes a lot of sense when you think of the kind and type of show most of us do in our cities and towns. The reason was to keep the trick moving and make a the trick boring for the audiences. After all, after 3 or 4 silks are produced, what does one think will be produced for the next item. A no brainer, the answer would be another silk of course. Most of us are not a Ade Duval and perform on the largest stages in the world with live music and audiences of thousands.

Marvin Roy aka Mr. Electric lectured and said all props should be huge and large for audiences of all sizes. Again, he performed on huge stages and concert halls all around the world.

So Bev Taylor's simple answer was to keep it moving, produce only 5 silks. The afore mentioned trick came with custom silks and a multi designed gimmick to produce a bottle or a in the hands Silk Fountain, or even a feather bouquet type of effect for the finale. What a great routine to keep the trick moving and interesting to create a surprise finale for the audiences.

He also made a Phantom Tube that was 7-3/4 inches tall. The above mentioned double tube production had the largest tube measuring only 4.5 x 2.25 inches.

So the point of this posting is for everyone to think about making their productions more interesting with a finale production, and be creative in your magic. Junk the Square Circle and think impossible production instead.

Town House Magic was later sold to Fabjance Magic. They did not carry over the same tricks that were manufactured, but made a number of items as well, until John Fabjance gave up the business and move to Chicago to follow a different career path.

I actually got to shake Bev Taylor's hand at a magic convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was good experience for me. He was of course older and he must have been 6 foot 6 or so, he was thin and hand solid white hair and a white mustache. Very handsome for an older gentleman. I could not find him though out the rest of the convention, I would have loved to talk to him.

In the VICTORIAN "era", productions from a hat were "big"! I don't recall name, but one magician featured a routine that "filled the stage" with stuff produced from his hat.
An old "SPHINX" magazine described his act.

C. Thomas MAGRUM, had a "tip over" box that was about 30" long x about 15" wide x about 18" high. ("tip over"--Blackstone had a huge "tip over" trunk that he used in the "girl in the Chinese Lantern".) Clem Magrum's box was his big finish. I think it took about 10 minutes (!) to haul all the stuff out of it. (The box "was" almost ALL load apace! When he down sized,in his later years, he wanted to sell it to me! I could have carried my whole school show in that box! (I remember that it took longer to load it, than it did to produce the load!)

I was touring in the St. Louis area in the fall (early '70s). Roy and Bernice Mayer, retired school show magicians (two of my mentors for years) took me to an October Fest in Missouri. Bev Taylor had bought an old toy factory (which he was operating)there, and we spent a delightful afternoon with him. Later that afternoon,Bev did a very polished act for a happy family audience in the town hall.

You are absolutely right, Bill! SIZE DOESN'T MATTER! (another way of saying: It isn't WHAT YOU DO, IT'S HOW YOU DO IT!

I remember well his TV Tubes prop from the early '50s. He and Don Lawton had the "right idea"!......(I just took a break to check out the TV Tubes in Bruce Hetzler's "Town House Magic" book. That book is a "sleeper" (filled with good solid material. I think that many (if not most) of the part time pro's average audience size would seldom exceed 200! --So, why schlepp around a trunk full of plywood props?! (Remember the assistants on the Blackstone show "BP" (before plywood!)? When asked if they had worked with HARRY (SENIOR) they would reply: "Yes! --Wanna see my truss?"

Hertz was the hat guy.

Right! Thank you! I think it was called something like Devil of a Hat...

Re Dick's comment about a magician whose act "featured a routine that 'filled the stage' with stuff produced from his hat."

Back in the 60's there was a magician named Samson on NBC's "International Showtime" with Don Ameche who produced a stage full of stuff from his hat and cape.

I'm not sure if the guy named Jorgen Samson on this youtube link is the same one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQIr9XGb5Bw
but he comes out with nothing but his hat, cape, and a small suitcase and fills the stage.
The Samson on "International Showtime" was younger but, hey, that was 50+ years ago!

----- Sonny

I seem to recall an analogy that I read some years ago... in which the law of diminishing returns was explained as pulling one rabbit from a hat was amazing...and maybe the second one is as well, but after a while...more rabbits doesn't make it better.

Then again....

Anatole,
No,it's not the same guy.
The original Jorgen Samson died in 2002.
Jorgen was from Denmark.
But what we see in your link is the same act!

We don't know when this television video was made. It was only uploaded in 2009, that is not the date it was taped. The listing says it is Jorgen Samson below the video.

John, do you think it's possible that a son or other relative might have taken over the Samson act? Maybe the way Emmett Kelley Jr. took over his dad's act, complete with the bit of sweeping away the spotlight?

----- Sonny

I remember seeing SAMSON on INTERNAATIONAL SHOWTIME. He also worked circuses and "filled" the circus ring. He and A. ROBBINS (the BANANA MAN)must have had the same mother!!!

Most of the International Showtime episodes were exactly that--circus performances from around the world.
A DVD set of the complete International Showtime series would be great.

I owe my whole career in magic to seeing Carlo Tornedo's manipulation act on "International Showtime." I asked my brother how he made the cards and billiard balls appear. My brother said there was a gadget in his sleeve that shot the cards and balls out to this fingers. I figured I would never be able to find or even afford a gadget like that. But then I discovered Henry Hay's _Amateur Magician's Handbook_ and I learned the card stuff. It wasn't until I discovered Earl Edwards's Magic Shop that I was able to get ahold of a set of multiplying billiard balls.

Then one day--in the late 1990's I think--I got a phone call... from Tornedo himself. He had heard from someone--I think either someone here on the Caf� or someone on the Electronic Grymoire--that his act had inspired me to take up magic and he somehow found my phone number and called me from his home in Sweden!

And of course meeting and becoming a good friend of Henry Hay (Barrows Mussey) in Germany was another memorable moment!

All in all, magic has been very good to me!

----- Sonny
BTW, Henry Hay could really do all the manipulation stuff from his book. One evening he, his wife and I had dinner in a German restaurant and after the table was cleared he did some extemporaneous coin routines with silver dollars. I did some card magic. A group of customers at another table saw what we were doing and asked us to do some magic for them. So we did around 15 to 20 minutes for them. Es hat viel Spass gemacht! (It was a lot of fun!)

Anatole,
I'm not sure about Jorgen Samson.
If you really want to be sure, sent a message to Patrick Sébastien - per his site
OR
sent a message to Monique Nakachian of Tavel International Agency: tavelag@aol.com - she books all the acts.