- What's up guys? Welcome back. Don't mind this thing. This is for my IV for my antibiotics. No danger, I'm totally fine. Feeling a lot better actually today, and today I was super excited. This box right here, this giant chest that I found on eBay, I paid like 1,200 buck for it, and it seemed really interesting to me, filled with magic
memorabilia from the 1920s. Absolutely insane, I have no
idea what to expect in here there are apparently books,
letters, tricks, all that stuff. So, we're gonna discover it together. I can't wait to get it open. I've been staring at it all weekend. Without and further
ado, let's get into it. I wish I had one of those cool
knives like Peter McKinnon. I've got a, I've got like a sticker scraper. Pete, if you're watching this, hook me up. (uptempo music) Best unboxing ever. Wow. Here we go. (chuckling) Let's take this over there. (grunting) This thing weighs like 60 pounds. It's gonna be a weird
unboxing if I just ... I'll put this box aside and then I'll pull items out from it. How about that?
(grunts) (suspenseful music) Checking to see, you never know, there might be a trap
door here or something, knowing magicians. No trap door, okay. Ooh I'm excited. You see what's in here? So... Ugh! That is the creepiest. What is wrong with this thing? This is disgusting. Look at this. (laughs) It literally looks like a
dead rabbit and it might be. Ugh! Ooh my God. Aviator playing cards,
look at these things. You can tell they're super
old because of the blue seal they're actually stamps. You have a look, can you see that? These are super old. We got bridge size and standard size. Oh, this is a trick deck. Ooh! Check this out. Abracadabra. An electric deck, what's this? Is this just a normal deck? I guess this is the normal, these are so old. A stripper deck. That's cool. Antoine do you know
what a stripper deck is? - [Antoine] Nope.
- All right, so here we'll see if it works. Take a card. Just one. Don't be greedy. Have a look at it, show the camera. Got it? Take it back, and I'll
put it right in here. And we'll even give it a shuffle. You know how to shuffle cards, Antoine? Shuffle, shuffle make
sure the cameras can see. Pretty good. All right, good enough. Now I have no idea what your card is, or where your card is, but I'm
gonna put it behind my back. Antoine for the first time name your card. - [Antoine] Five of spades, yeah. - Yeah boy, that's pretty cool. For those of you not into magic, definitely not what you expected. This guy like seriously,
I don't know who this is. Hopefully, we'll find out
who or who these people are. What is it? Mike and Glenn or something? Might be a long video,
but I'm super stoked. So this a thread and a needle. I'm guessing it's for
a rising card effect, where the card rises out of the deck. Pretty sweet how even back then magicians didn't just use a normal deck of cards. They had all these different
decks set up for all the tricks they were gonna do. Should I wear a mask? You just have like a
face mask or something? Do we have a mask? Cut the part out where I
go into the secret room. How does this look? This doesn't look too ridiculous does it? I don't think it really helps
ne for breathing though. So gross. What's this? Oh so it's like a multiplying ball. Never learned how to do this. You got a ball. (bright music) Two, huh, not bad. I don't know. We got coins, look at this. Are these shiners. I'm not super proficient with
coin work as you can see. I am a bit of a layman when
it comes to coin stuff. (coin dropping) So... Coin stuff's actually really expensive. So that's a good find. Multiplying billard balls. Correct me if I'm wrong but
billard balls are a little bit bigger than this, but I get it. Yep, so that little trick I showed you is like a small version of this, and we're just gonna leave that in there. This is actually gross. What's this thing? Ooh, it's a big die, a
dice, one dice right? Two die. And it's heavy. Steel ball through brass bolt. A steel ball penetrates a brass bolt in a mysterious fashion. The cleverest of all steel
ball effects, all mechanical, can be passed out for examination. See even back then they
were worried about that. Okay, I see, I see. You got a steel bolt, which by the way can be handed out for examination. Would you like to examine it? All right, give that back. Thank you, and that's gonna go in here. Now I don't know if this is how it works, but that's all the way
through as you can see. Make sure it's nice and
tight, and we're gonna drop the steel ball on top of this bolt. See it go through. (ball dropping) Just like that. (laughing) And there you go, that can be
handed out for examination. Not gonna do it. Getting so gross, this
is getting out of hand. Can you give me that cloth? I'm gonna keep this handy, 'cause this is kind of really gross. What's this? Oh, looks like more gimmick playing cards. Oh they're just lik blank
backs, blank faces, okay. Oh this is a reel, is this for a lighter? So you would, shoo, right?
(steel clanging) And it would disappear. But I don't know what
you would put in here. Maybe a cigar? Probably a cigar, so like
a disappearing cigar trick where you just have a
cigar, load it in there then be like, whew, gone, right? Also smells, I feel like this would be
inside of like a tackle box you know like for fishing. Ooh. Phew. Famous shell game. Okay, a three shell game. Oh this is cool. This is like his... AJ Lionhart, Leonhardt, I guess that was his name, Presents Fooldini, Mad Master of Magic, entertainment anytime, anywhere. June 5th 1946, and there's his address. Fooldini. I think this is just random gimmicks that's he's like, "Ah,
just put it in the..." You know, we all got
those like gimmick piles? We're like, "Hey, just put it in the..." That really smells. What the heck is this? Some type of weapon? I tell ya, being an antique's dealer, probably not an easy job. Probably have lung cancer. Oh! Another deck of cards
here Ladies and Gentlemen. Svengali deck. Half of this video's just gonna be me grossed out by the smell. That's all I got, I
don't know what this is. Egg bag? Change bag? Oh, look at this little trinket box here. I have no idea what this is. If you know what this is comment below. Flower in button hole. A beautiful flower's
made to magically appear on performers coat lapel. Easy to do, good comedy. What's this for? Like how the instructions
all look like they're typed up on a typewriter. Well, actually, 'cause they probably were. Soaks from sheet of paper. Don't need it. So gross. Uh. What is that? Is that Anthrax? What's this? Stage money. I'll leave that over there. I don't know what half
of these things are. Is that a wooden egg? Ladies and gentlemen a
completely normal egg, fresh from the chicken. I mean, at least it's
actually from the era. Like, there's a lot of this stuff. I don't know what this is. You can tell me in the comments. It just looks like, is
this flash paper? (laughs) Did they have flash paper back then? Ooh. Whoa. Okay, whoa, whoa. Definitely gonna start a fire in here. No more burning things. Ooh! Whew! Magic, one of them is heavy. One of them is a metal. Probably for a trick, not sure what. Ready? One, two, three. Gone. Never see it again. Until you. Anticlimactic. Climactic? Climatic? Clima... This was a coin fashioned for these guys. It says, "Art and Glen, Magic Men." That's kinda cool. Fooled, fooled again. This is like a half dice. Don't know what that's for. Looks like these magicians were crypts. Ta-da! This is probably like for a
floating table or something. And a pewting bouquet. Silks. More silks. Back then people, I mean,
silks was a big thing, performers would wear suits,
and so it was very important that you could do stuff with your suits. Such as, the flower button hole, anything with a tie,
silks, gloves, sleeves. That was the big thing, right. Color changing handkerchief. Oh, there we go. American flag handkerchief. Fox Lake playing cards. John Snyder Junior, Norwood. Look at the long flaps on the tuck cases. No explanations. Oh, they're just blank cards. Here was the other half of that dice. If I get cholera by the end of this video, I'll let you know. Silked egg. Wine of Carnac. Glass of wine is caused
to float in mid-air then suddenly vanishes and is found under a
previously shown empty hat. Five in one magic tube. Little tube. Okay. Some rope, for some rope magic. Stop, go. Two dollar. Manufactured by John
Snyder, Norwood, Ohio. One of those tricks where you
turn the bottle upside down. Ireland's new handkerchief gimmick. Yup, there it is. Oh, it's with the, yeah,
it's with the pencil. The Anti-Gravico. Borrowed bottle full of water is held upside down,
pencils, matches, etc. are pushed up into the, huh, up into the water, yet the
water will not pour out. Greatest gravity defying
trick every invented. No skill, no practice, no
preparation, patent pending. Price, one dollar. Little trick lock. Magic pamphlets. Berland's Magic Studio
in Chicago, Illinois. Oh, wow, this is an old flyer, or catalog, if you will, for ordering magic tricks, back then. Abbett's milk bottle, Abbett's tipsy-turvy
bottles, card mystery. Look at the prices, man, $1,
seven fifty for this one. Tarbell, here you go, wow, dude. Tarbell volume one, five dollars. These are hundreds of dollars now. Haunted cigarettes, a lot of
cigarette tricks back then. National Magic Co.
supplements three and four. So this is a book here. Another advert, another
catalog for magic tricks. All sorts of cool tricks, look at, I mean. Harlequin cigarette holder. Look at the illustrations on this. This is quite interesting. The television gun, what is this? Look at that, that was
like ahead of its time. The electric pack of
cards, a dollar sixty. We showed the electric deck before. These illustrations are
absolutely incredible. This is really, really great. So if you were back in
like the 30s and 40s and wanted to buy magic tricks, this is how you would order them. And I guess, you'd have
to send money through... Oh! Something's written here. Through like the mail. Art Leonhardt, Leonhardt, Leonardt, so that was his name,
in Chicago, Illinois. Oh, this is a whole effect. Oh, this is like a bouquet, how do you make a bouquet
out of a piece of paper? Very cool. Three-card monte, an
easy to do pocket trick. So we have three cards
here, the Two of Hearts, the Four of Clubs, and
the Ten of Diamonds. And I'm just gonna close this up. I'm going to do this, and I'm gonna spread out the cards. And you're gonna tell me
where the four of clubs is. Now, you assume it's in the middle. But if you have a look. It's actually on the end. U.F. Grant and R.N. Menge
present Magic on Approval. Oh, so another catalog, Columbus, Ohio. $10,000 reward can be
offered to any persons proving you used paid
assistants or confederates when reading minds with our new super secret gimmick trick. So if you can prove they use assistants to read minds, you get $10,000. My guess is the method
doesn't require an assistant. I mean, that's a good advert. That $10,000, I mean, back then. Again, great illustrations here. Oh, we got the chair illusion. Women always being assistants back then. Super sexist. Borderline racist sometimes. Such is the early 20th century. That's cool, that's actually nice. Magic News. Ladies and Gentlemen, magic
news, dun a lalalalala The Magic News Extra. Caesar honored in 1944. A program of like a magic show. What? Cardini. Oh my God. Look at this baby. Ottokar Fischer, Magic Illustrated. Property of Art Leonhardt. Figure one, Harry Kellar. "Belief in miracles was the first religion "of the human race. "Leaning toward the mysterious "was its first glimmering
of consciousness. "Who were the first
magicians and conjurers? "Men who succeeded in finding out "some secret of nature "and who then conjured, with
the help of this knowledge. "Not always, it must be said, "for the good of their fellow men." This book is actually in
really good condition. Wow. This is a really great find. Quite pleased with this. This is a first edition? How do we know? Published October 1931, reprinted April 1936
and 1942, 1943, so 1943. This is right around World
War II, that's insane. Wow love the font they
use here, and the color. Very cool, definitely something
I'm gonna have to read. Yogi Blocks, blocks change position in an uncanny manner. An unusual mystery, easy to do, 75 cents. What is this? It would say correct
weight or money refunded. You drop a coin in there and then it would go like
this and then it would say, "You are five cents lighter." (laughs) Oh, a letter, Ponderous Press. These are letters to Mr Arthur Leonhardt who had this collection. "Gentlemen, this is to
acknowledge the receipt "of your letter dated July 9th 1946 "in which you offered me
a certificate of merit "and a cheque for $5. "Please be advised that I would be glad "to accept your kind offer "and hope to see my hat and cane de-table "published in your magazine sometime. "Thanking you in advance "for the above mentioned
cheque and certificate." So, I guess Arthur was a creator. He also created magic, and he must have sold that
to a company for five bucks. Me and Artie got a lot in common here. Another one here, Conjurers Magazine. So he was published in Conjurers Magazine. Check this baby out. Great Ovette's Tricks and Illusionettes. Just another catalog here. Ireland's year book. I mean, that's kind of, I don't know how to feel about that. There's obviously his assistant here, a small child (laughs) in diapers. A different era Ladies and Gentlemen. Methods, methods, old methods. Oh. There's a letter in here. Here we go. "On Sunday afternoon,
April, huh, crossed out May, "23rd, 1944, at four o'clock, "an auction of the
magnificent magical effects "of the late illustrious Eugene Laurant, "will be held at the Adventurers' Club. "Be there for profit
and fun, The Committee. "Magicians only." That's pretty cool. Another era, man, this is just so crazy that like back then when
magic was really coveted, you know, so I guess not a lot of people had access to something like this which is really sweet. Another... More tricks here. Crazy before the internet, you'd have to have all these
things to go through and see, "Hey, I wanna learn something." I gotta order it, wait five weeks for the horse carriage to drop it off. Look at this. I'm guessing these are his notes. This is probably the most
prized possession in here. "What's on your mind? "A super mental trick by A Carlo Effect. "Funny, 50 cents, a mind
reading trick with a laugh." Yo, this is crazy, this is actually crazy. This video's gonna get flagged. (laughs) It's a nudie from the 40s dude. I like how he keeps it in his binder like he was trying to hide it from his wife or something. Adultery. Oh, cool, kind of like a torn and restored with different cards. There's so much magic that
people don't know about which is insane to me. You know we see a lot of
those new magic tricks that are, whether they're
performed on AGT, or on TV, or you see them in these
magic trick shops online but a lot of them are just forgotten about because people invent new
stuff, we love the new stuff. "It's amoozin' but
confoozin', confoozin card." Oh, that's cool. "The Jumbo Card is
shown to two spectators, "one says the King of Diamonds, "the second spectator claims
it's the Jack of Spades. "But it turns out to be "an entirely different card all together, "which is given out for examination." That's a cool duality effect. Where you show the King
of Spades over here, you show the King of Spades over here, they both say their card at the same time, he says, "King of Spades."
he says, "Jack of Diamonds." and then you turn around, the card's like Eight
of Hearts or something. So a really funny trick
you can do for stage. Vampire trick it says. For all you vampires out there. See, again, look the,
again with the racism. (laughs) Tarbell Chinese Ropes, this is cool. It's the Tarbell effect. This is certified that Art Leonhardt is a full fledged member
of the Lane Magic Club. That's cool, his membership
card for the magic club. I mean, absolutely illegible. Oh, and scribbled notes, of like effects that he's come up with. Can you read that? It looks like chicken scratch. It doesn't look like anything else. That's just gags. This guys just wrote
down some gags and stuff, and he typed them down which is crazy. Oh wow, the card clock. Oh, here we go. Here's his drawing, look at that. Even color. This is beautiful. All the tricks this guy's come up, he was really passionate about magic. Oh, there's his dice trick, a guillotine. A guiatine, guillotine, guiatine... Oh, his routine, his club routine. Check this out. So it says here, club
routine, match the flower, firefly silk, silk to billiard ball, multiplying billiard ball,
billiard ball to silk. Silk and billiard balls. This guy's like, "I'm
gonna kill it tonight." Guys, this is his actual set opening. "Good evening folks, I'm a magician. "You all know what a magician is, "a magician is a guy who can always "get a seat on the local bus. "In other words, a magician
can do the impossible." Pause for applause and laughter. "I think you will agree,
after seeing my act, "that as a magician I too am impossible. "For my first mystery this
evening Ladies and Gentlemen, "I will cause a horse to vanish, "chop a beautiful lady into bits, "and cause a white
elephant to change color. "All within the space of three seconds. "Let's start off with the while elephant. "Now let me see, "what did I do with that
white elephant? (laughs) "Business of looking at
the apparatus on the table. "Speaking of white elephants, "pick up the first trick. "Here's a trick I just got
from Sears and Roebuck." (laughs) Okay. "As you know, there are
several branches of magic art "just as the human body
is divided into parts, "for instance, there are three
main parts to the human body. "There is the smoking room,
point to upper part of the body. (laughs) "The dinning room, point to
the center part of the body. "And of course the sitting room." (laughs) "Magic's like wise
divided into three parts, "first we have slight of hand, "you've all heard of the
quickness of the hand "deceives the eye, so naturally magicians "must be quick with hands. "Another person who is quick "with his hands is a pick pocket. "I recently read where they
arrested a pick pocket, "at the local zoo, he had a good day too, "they found three watches, five wallets, "48 cents in change, and a baby kangaroo." (laughs) This guy, slaying it. "Next we have mental magic." And this is all typed by
the way, this is his act. "Next we have mental magic, "in which your mind is fooled. "It's just a case of mind over matter, "however if you have a mind
like mine, nothing matters." (laughs) This guy. Zing! "And then we have illusionary magic, "in which you eye is fooled. "It's a little like
standing on a street corner "on a windy day, "there's plenty to see, but
it all happens too quickly. "Pleasure to be here tonight, "I have just returned
from tour of the country, "in fact, come here
directly from a long run, "for the local bus." Oh, he says local in parenthesis, so he's gonna like, the town name. "Of course you know, I
am the star of the show, "they gave me the star's
dressing room anyway. "It's rather embarrassing though, "every time someone wants to use the phone "I have to get out." (laughs) They gave him a phone booth. "For my first trick this evening, "I will do one that I've been
rehearsing for two weeks. (laughs) "I'm going to do it now, "so I can see what the
heck's wrong with it." (laughs) So these are all
gags and like funny things, this was a comedy magician. You know, a lot of these
things are comedy props, and he was there to make people laugh. "I'm sorry I was a little
late this evening, folks. "You see, I had to help
my uncle find his glasses. "He said he didn't mind losing them, "only one of them was
half full of whiskey." (laughs) "Cigarettes, cigarettes
remind me of some girls. "They come in packs, get
lit, hang on your lips, "make you puff, go out unexpectedly, "leave a bad taste in your mouth, and yet, "they satisfy." Ooh, he's got a line for hecklers. "You can close your mouth now, bud, "I'm going to do the trick. "I'm doing the trick." Okay, straight to the point. Just like, shut your
face, doing the trick. "Any five year old child
could do this trick. "Well, I wish that five
year old child was here now. "Maybe he could do it." That's if the trick goes wrong. That's hilarious, so
if a trick goes wrong, he says, "And they said
even a five year old child "could do this, and I wish
that five year old child "was here right now because
maybe he could help me." That's a funny line. "If you have a cold." He's got, dude, this
guy's got a line for... A true pro, whoever this
guy was, was a true pro. Performing, touring magician. He wrote down all of his lines, all of his gags, all of his jokes. So he's got like a joke about music, napkins, newspapers, milk. So anything, orchestra, if
there's an orchestra, rabbits. "You've heard that story, "once upon a, once upon a
time there were two Irishmen, "now there are millions of them. "Well, two weeks ago I had two rabbits, "and this morning when
I looked, guess what? "One of them was dead.
(laughs) "You shouldn't get ahead of me like that." (laughs) That's actually funny,
that's actually funny. Pocket and impromptu tricks, cups and balls. (laughs) I love that, impromptu tricks, first thing on the list, cups and balls. So I know this video was very long, but I thought it was really cool. Thank you for those of you watching, if you made it this far. One thing that really pops into my head, like when I start taking
out all these things, I kinda looked at it and was
like, this is all rubbish, this is all dusty and gross and smelly, but the further I dug down in this chest, you started to uncover bits and pieces about who this guys is, or who he was. And I came to realize this
guy was an actual performer, loved magic, passionate
about it, a creator, he sold his tricks on the market. Much like myself, which
is really interesting. He had his stage lit, he had literally a line for everything, a true
pro in the Chicago scene, I guess, back in the 40s. And probably a time when
people needed magic the most. This is during or after World War II, probably a time when people
really needed to laugh and see some really cool magic. You know, I can't help thinking, you know, this guy, he's probably,
never in his wildest dreams, thought in 80 years from now, almost a century later, that some modern magician, on camera, on a YouTube video would be reviewing his whole entire life in his magic kit. I mean, that just kind of blows my mind about the difference in a, just the difference in time. And you know, these
things were all brand new when he had them, these gags,
these jokes, these tricks. They weren't dinged
up, they weren't dusty. They were brand new and he
saved up his hard earned money to buy them through catalogs which he ordered through letters. And then fast forward
a hundred years later, I'm here unboxing it and talking about it. I just think it's super wild, you know, to think about that, to think about how this was all new to him, and he would never in his wildest dreams imagine somebody doing this
'cause this didn't exist. So just crazy what time brings, and who knows, you know, maybe one day all the stuff that I got
back, sitting back here, you know, someones gonna
have some different type of platform and
review whatever I had. But it's just strange
to think think about. Let me know if you guys know
anything about this guy. Arthur Leonhardt,
L-E-O-N-H-A-R-T-D, or D-T. He's from Chicago, but also in Ohio, I think I've seen some things. Let me know if you find anything out, if there are any magicians
or historians out there that want to look that up. I'll do my research on my end, but super interesting,
really glad I picked this up. If not just for the experience
of myself unboxing it, and this right here, all
the books, and catalogs. Now these are the things
that I will cherish, and especially his notebooks. Just a great piece of history, you know, when you look back on it. So, guys thanks for watching this video. If you did enjoy it hit the like button, I do appreciate it. Comment below, what was your
favorite piece in all of this? And let me know. Subscribe to this channel
if you're not already, and we'll see you on the next video. Peace! (upbeat music)
Magician’s Trunk Filled With Stage and Parlor Props and Apparatus.
Circa 1930s—40s.
Owned by the magician Arthur J. Leonhardt (“Fooldini”), of Chicago
https://auctions.potterauctions.com/lot-9049.aspx
The card at 18:42 is from Jinx #001, yes?
Strikes me that this would have been better done with a more well rounded magician -- a Dan Harlan or David Williamson or Michael Ammar, that would probably know what most (or all) of this stuff is for.