Showing posts with label collections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collections. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

The Magic Collectors Weekend Report


I'm not sure if I've had a guest blogger on here, or if I have it's been a while. My friend Blair Marshall who is a great Magician/Illusionist from Canada, attended the Magic Collectors Weekend, and I asked him if he could share his experience with the readers of TheMagicDetective.com. I discovered that John Cox from WildAboutHoudini.com had a guest blogger do a write up for his site as well. I decided to wait a couple days before I put this up to give folks enough time to see his write-up. I purposely chose to use a similar format, but have done my best to give you different photos and different content.

And now, Take It Away Blair...

Mike Caveney started the day by doing an awesome job telling The Egyptian Hall story to the gathering here in Montreal for the Magic Collectors Weekend. Egyptian Hall was the magic collection of David Price Jr.. To read more about Egyptian Hall, follow this link


What an amazing kick-off to our day at the McCord Museum and the opening weekend of their Illusions: The Art of Magic exhibit. Prepare to see some really incredible images I took during my time at the exhibit!


Here are some of the photos of the amazing magic poster collection at the Montreal McCord Musuem we saw during the Magic Collectors Weekend. The exhibit represents approx. 10% of their collection. They are beautifully displayed and the exhibition halls are well themed. A big thank-you to Christian Vachon, the poster collection curator, for the love, care, and attention to detail that he gave to this amazing exhibit. BRAVO CHRISTIAN, BRAVO McCORD!!!





If those pictures were part of the 10%, what else is there??? As part of the MCW we were taken "behind the scenes" by the magic poster collection curator Christian Vachon and down into the vault where we saw some amazing HUGE posters . Merci Christian!


The attendees to the MCW were taken to the library by Geneviève Déziel of the Montreal McCord Musuem where we got to view some of the Houdini artifacts from the collection (not shown to the public).

This is the former student union hall where it is said Houdini gave his last talk to the McGill students on spirit mediums, he died just a few days later.

The museum may eventually do a Houdini exhibit.


We did not know the programming for the Magic Collector's Weekend here in Montreal.  Little did I know that the Friday evening event was about the early years of Doug Henning. After an opening talk by Michael Grandinetti, the stage was taken over by Brian Lumley and Maya (Lesley Fitzpatrick-Walker ), two of Doug's very close friends and assistants from the "Spellbound" days and on. Brian was a carpenter (still is) and built sets and props for Spellbound.  Maya was part of a two woman magic act called Mars and Mayo who worked with Doug.

I had met Doug Henning prior to them in 1969/70, and I had performed on a magic convention show with Maya and Mars in 1977. So it was great meet them and to reconnect with Maya again. (ed note: To read more about Maya, visit her site where she talks about Doug http://www.mayafair.ca/previous-incarnations/)

On Saturday evening, after the show The Allan Slaight Awards were given out. To read more about the awards please visit http://www.magicana.com/news/blog/and-award-goes-0

Julie Eng and David Ben, along with their support team, did an awesome job pulling together the Magic Collectors Weekend here in Montreal, folks from all over the world attended, making it truly an international event. Thanks Julie and Ben!!!!!
Blair Marshall and Julie Eng
 Thanks BLAIR for the great photos and report!!! Also, please go to http://www.magicana.com/ to see all the wonderful articles and videos of magic history they offer and subscribe to their magazine. Also, visit http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/magic/   to learn more about the exhibit.
And finally, Please check out John Cox's site to get even more perspective on the weekend.. http://www.wildabouthoudini.com/2017/05/magic-comes-to-mccord-museum-in-montreal.html

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Movie Water Torture Cell on Display at New Magic Museum

Guy Pierce as Houdini in Death Defying Acts
Over in Norfolk (UK) The Davenport's Magic Kingdom has recently opened. This is a museum dedicated to five generations of magic collecting and magic memorabilia. It's a special magic museum open to everyone. With the price of a ticket you get to see the wonderful exhibition and a 30 minute magic show.  There are posters, costumes and props on display AND you'll also find the Water Torture Cell used by actor Guy Pierce in the movie Death Defying Acts. The film came out in 2007 and also stars Catherine Zeta Jones in a highly fictionalized story about Harry Houdini and a psychic medium.

I received a photo of the cell from one of my readers, Philip David Treece. He also mentions that it's a very large cell probably much larger than any cell previous made. Below is the photo of the cell. Enjoy the photo and if you are in the UK by all means, go check out Davenport's Magic Kingdom.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Tim Moore Dentist and Magic Collector

Props once owned and used by Robert Houdin
Any Dentist's Office that has magic posters hanging on the wall is definitely the Dentist I want to be seeing! The only problem is, his office is in Ohio! The dentist in question is Tim Moore, who is not only an accomplished dentist but he is also a magician and magic collector. The Robb Report, which is a Luxury Lifestyle Magazine is featuring  Tim and his magic collection in an edition of their magazine called 'COLLECTION' June 2013 edition.

The article is titled 'Grand Illusions-A collector's devotion to illustious artifacts from the golden age of magic'. The photos in this article are amazing. I've never actually seen Tim's collection in person (though I hope to see it one day soon) but he certainly owns some truly remarkable pieces. In one of the first photos you can see the small floating ball that was once used by Howard Thurston. In another photograph, the fabric cards used by Servais LeRoy can be seen. And in another photo, that I'm particularly envious of, Tim Moore is holding onto Karl Germain's Spirit Lock! In fact, the article goes on to describe how he came into possession of the famed Spirit Lock.

It's a fantastic article full of beautiful photographs. I'm personally also intrigued with all the top hats he owns from famous magicians. I believe the article mentions he owned Houdini's Top Hat and if you think Houdini didn't own one, well, he's got a photo of Houdini and Hardeen both wearing their hats!

Here are a just a few items from his Houdini collection, there are a lot more than this!