Amos,

sounds great, would love to compare notes one day.
We did have water, but no special table.
Producing an eight year old - fantastic.

We were working on "pulling a car out of the tubes"
for one client.

timothy

Yes you certainly did not need a table to produce the stuff. But a short table to elevate the tubes makes them much easier to see.

Bob Higa and De Yip Louie both did a great job with it.

Richard

Actually, looking back at the videos, I think she was closer to six than eight. It would be tough to fit an eight-year-old into the tubes...

;)

Amos McCormick

It sounds very interesting to me if the climax of this effect is a fish bowl production!! May be this is because I am too young to read old book...?!?
Could someone try to describe the routine?

The effect is essentially this:

Two large tubes (12-14 inches in diameter) are shown empty and nested together. Immediately, silks, flowers, and other things are produced from them. The tubes are once again separated and shown empty. When the tubes are re-nested, a large vase of water, rice, etc. is produced from the tubes. The vase is so large that it will not fit back into the tubes.

Seldom seen, but a great trick.

Amos McCormick

You can find it here, but the page is in Japanese.
Japanese Kuma Tubes

Jonas Karlsson
Vibono Magic
Sweden

That's exactly what I bought years ago from Stevens, but if my currency conversion is correct, they are $1214.00 on the website?!?!?! Maybe that includes the $30.00 table.

I'm in the wrong line of work!

Amos McCormick

The original Kuma Tubes produced a spherical brass vase after the production of large amounts of silks, then the vase was shown to contain water. Finally, the vase was demonstrated to be larger than the tubes it came from.

What we've been suggesting to "revlovejoy" is that he can substitute a round glass or plastic fishbowl for the brass vase, which in my view makes the trick even more interesting. This might then be followed up with a production of a stack of balanced glass fishbowls from under the silks already produced. It would make a pretty act. It could also be disasterous in the hands of the nervous.

I think the tubes that UGM sells includes the table. I believe that they are produced by the Polish magician Arsene Lupin but I'm not sure.

Jonas Karlsson
Vibono Magic
Sweden

I just bought the Japanese Kuma Tubes. The tubes are made from heavy carton paper with good printing design on it. You can disassemble the tubes Even the vase can be broken apart for easy storage. It is very well made.

I have had the privelage of seeing Johnny Platt do the Kuma Tubes from back stage. His props consisted of the 2 tubes, a large brass tray, and a bamboo set of legs that,along with the circular brass tray formed a table.
He came out picked up the 2 tubes and held them up for the audience to see thru both at the same time. He picked up the tray and twirled it around and dropped it onto the skeleton table legs forming a tripod table (no draping). After the usual Kuma tube handling to continously show the tubes empty, they were lifted to show the bowl. The huge bowl was lifted and spilled out onto the tray. It was filled with sand. Next the tubes were placed down over the bowl---but they did not fit! only the larger would fit the smaller was too small. Then with a wave of the hand it fell into the larger nesting over the bowl. Quick lifting of the tubes revealed that the bowl was gone and a large production of silks followed. The prope consist of the bowl, two tubes and that is all. I had a set and the tubes were made from thin wood with wood bands overlapping and stapled like a commercial cheese box. as for the comparison, there is no comparison to the square circle. Kuma---done right ---has a lot of fast action and several surprises.
Any specific questions, feel free to pm me
Paul

The last time I was at Owen's Magic Alan just finished about 6 sets of Kuma tubes and tables. They are beautiful with the Copper Vase. A Collector's item. The vase is a trick in itself. When I saw them all I could say was WOW! It was hard walking out of there with a set. So if you ever decide to buy a set, the Owens set is the only one. And you can't make the vase. The vase is a big part of the trick. You could live with out the table. Talk to Alan he might sell you the tubes with out the table.

Jim Gerrish combined the Kuma Tubes with the square Buddah Tubes and the Histed Square Circle to come up with his own variation called simply "Production Tubes" in his "Hardboard and Duct Tape Magic Book 1" (on my site). Instead of a brass vase, it uses a glass fishbowl, and has an additional feature of producing a vase of realistic flowers that is also larger than the tubes from which it is taken.

http://magicnook.com/hardboard/HDDTB1-08.htm

I have the Mak/Grant tubes ..they are very small .... The best I have seen is De Yip Loo .... look

http://www.mai-ling.net/magic.html

very fast paced with lots of flash ....

This trick is far superior to the Square Circle, but requires much more skill in handling. the speed and finesse tht gives this trick it's "WOW" almost approaches juggling. Having said thta, I believe one could adjust the tempo to create tension and with the right musical score...it would be sensational again! Performed most notably by Yen Soo Kim who worked under the name Kuma, it was also featured by johnny Platt and more recently by David Avadon with a rather poetic presentation in the late 1990's.

What made Kuma's (Kim) presentation so exciting was the speed he employed and the constant build of effect. Dressed in a Chinese style outfit, He did have a special table to drain the water from the bowl as I recall, but his ending was sensational. After a number of silks were produced, two lead wires would drop from the flies and he would deftly attach these to the corners of a silk inside the tube.

On cue, he would have th cires pulled, drawing a huge flag from the tube in the general size of 8 by 12 feet! He of course, was behind the tubes as this happened, so when the flag appeared he was briefly out of sight. He would then step into few , having been gone for only a few seconds and he was now wearing a double breasted whit panama suit and hat with cane for his exit and bow!

Johnny Platt's handling was essentially as described above by Paul. Johnny was a short man (about 5 feet) and so this piece of apparatus was smaller than the Owen's equipment and smaller than Kuma's as well. Now Johnny had a bigger set of tubes and bowl but they were too large for him. Johnny lived next door to me and because I would run errands for him and took an interest in him in his later years ...we became friends. He made me a present of the larger bowl and tubes!

The larger brass bowl was shaped rather like some ceramic vases of the 1950's, with concentric rings around it and maybe 10 or 12 inches high and 9 inches around. Welded on the side was a 1/8 inch brass wire that allowed you to steal the bowl from the tubes under the cover of the silks previously produced. This was Johnny's own idea he said and his apparatus was well described in the first(?) volume of Calssic magic apparatus books by Dr. Albo

This included Johnny's interlocking table that folded falt...an extremely simple and practical device that is all one would need today to do credit to this fine effect.

I'll add mor to this thread as it pops back into my brain...I haven't thought about this in 25 years!

I put up a little video of a routine I did a while back. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1E8UMPSJSY

-Scott

It was neat to see the Barrel Botania I reworked for you.

Richard

Richard,

Looks nice in performance doesn't it?
Wouldn't ever use any other flowers than yours!

thanks,

Scott

Enjoyed the performance, though the lights moving all over the place were a bit distracting...made it difficult to see some of the effect.

Yeah, the lighting is a little "disco." The lighting designer and choreographer was (and still is) Liza Minelli's, so a little "flair" is to be expected:)