Among the items of interest in our collection of magic is a deck of cards owned by Cardini. These are the very cards he used in performance. Each deck was stamped with his name on the outer box. You can see this in the photo under the "PEAU".
Click the photo to visit card-trick .com which shows a video of Cardini performing. Although there are many fine manipulators today, Cardini's magic was beyond comparison.
When the Mark Wilson Course in Magic was first published, it came in a 3 ring binder with an assortment of tricks demonstrated in the book. In addition, each original copy was personalized and stamped into the cover. Pictured below is Art Martello's original copy of thes book which is quickly becoming one of the "classics" in magic. Note the name stamped in the lower right corner and Mark Wilson's personalized autograph.
The book you see pictured below may be very hard to find. It is the original publication by Carl Fulves of The Magic of Slydini...and More. Shortly after it's publication there were problems and a new publisher took over changing the name to The Best of Slydini...and More. Go ahead and try to find a copy on the internet!! I doubt that you will.
Those of you who are old enough to remember will recognize Jerry Mahoney who was one of the most popular ventriloquist figures of all time. Made famous by his owner Paul Winchell, he had his own TV show in the 60's. The figure you see above is an exact replica, molded from the original Jerry and built by master figure maker Jerry Layne who Paul Winchell commissioned to duplicate. The figure you see above is in Arthur Martello's private collection.
A view of Halcottsville from the air. Here you can see the village, lake and Susan's Pleasant Pheasant Farm which sits at the bottom of Lake Wawaka. That's the creamery building (left of center) which is the home of Catskill Mountain Magic.
In our magic shop is a rather unique ventriloquist figure. As you can see, he is in a showcase. This "dummy" was used in a short lived TV series called Buddy Faro. It first aired in 1998 and starred Dennis Farina. Art found this figure on ebay and learned that it had been a part of a collection that came from Debbie Reynolds home. Although we are not sure which episode it was usen in,, there was an episode titled "Now You See Him, Now He's Dead" which aired on October 23, 1998. The figure itself is a Jerry Layne figure. Art spoke to Jerry when he originally acquired it and Jerry does not remember making it specifically for the show but said that many times studios buty one of his "stock" figures and alter it to suit their needs. In any event, he now resides in Halcotsville NY at Catskill Mountain Magic.
The Shell Game
(click for history)
Want to raise money at your Community Fair? Why not hire Catskill Mountain Magic to "swindle" folks out of thier hard earned bucks. All proceeds going to your charity of course. Give us a call!
(Click photo to view a brief shell game routine)
