There were three magicians of whom I had read about and longed to meet and see but, was never fortunate enough to be in an area where they were. They were Billy O’Connor, Chris Van Bern and Tom Fagan. I heard so many interesting stories about them and their work.

From reading Stanyon’s “Magic” and Max Sterling’s “Magical World” I knew about the novelty items in Chris Van Bern’s act. I have heard that he told a card story using jumbo cards. I adapted a card story and made it up in giant size in order to use the Van Bern climax where the card changed to a crying baby, as a walk-off. I described this in one of my books.

But, it was the man himself that interested me most. I had heard where he would be in the midst of a crowd, like a theatre line-up and suddenly throw a handful of half-pennies in the air and people would scramble everywhere to get them. When they picked them up, each would bear a sticker advertising Chris Van Bern. He was also reputed to have sold dozens of “The actual bullet that killed Chung Ling Soo.”

Billy O’Connor was a man I had admired from a distance, after reading about him doing an act with just a deck of cards, billing himself as a magician with 52 assistants.

I heard about his presentation of “Instanto”, the deck he created and made famous. I still have one of them in my collection. There was one effect in his act that I heard about. He tossed a deck to the member of the audience announcing that he would always cut a card higher than the spectator. Armed with his “Instanto” deck, Billy had no problem, as it is constructed so you can cut to any card named. The nice part of this presentation was that he had taken the precaution of removing the aces from the deck tossed to the spectator. The reason should be obvious.

I have always had a great respect for O’Connor, mainly because of a contribution he made, many years ago, to “The Magic Wand.” It was the principle of asking for a number between ten and twenty, counting that number of cards on the table, then adding the two digits (of the given number) together and retrieving that number of cards. The card at that point is automatically forced (having been the tenth card in the original set-up.

I know this is fairly common knowledge now, but I believe O’Connor was the first to publish it. For me, it was a great principle and I used it for years and it constantly baffled magicians. Its use, of course has since been varied in many ways.

Tom Fagan’s act was described to me and it was a very simple one-man stand-up magic act. He opened by removing a handkerchief from his sleeve (a customary carrying place by Englishmen at that time), spread it over his hand and produced a short glass of whiskey, which he drank. I believe there was a patter line such as “I hope you’re in good spirits, I am.”

But, it was the final that intrigued me. From the stories I heard, he concluded with the rising cards – causing a chosen card to rise. He would exit, carrying the goblet and cards, come back for a bow, still carrying the cards and glass, but during that moment off stage, he had switched them for a duplicate threaded set prepared for the DeKolta shower of cards.

Stepping to the front he would say, “If you care to call out the name of a card, I’ll cause it to rise. Knowing English theatre audiences I can picture the shouting of card names that followed such a request. When the entire deck would shower all over the stage, I can well imagine the effect and the sort of enthusiasm with which it would be received.

A great finale.