This now familiar standard of beginners' magic texts, in which a pencil is broken in half with a blow from a folded dollar bill or bank note, was originally called “Biffo” when it was marketed as an instruction sheet in October 1923 by the Thayer Manufacturing Co. (See The Sphinx, Vol.22 No. 8, Oct. 1923, p. 243.) Thayer did not credit the trick to anyone, so it is reasonable to assume that it was the invention of Floyd Thayer or one of his staff.

Within a year, B. L. Gilbert was selling it under the name of “Power of Money”. (See The Sphinx, Vol. 23 No. 7, Sep. 1924, p. 230.)

“Biffo” quickly moved into the public domain when it appeared in the Jan. 24, 1925 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 5, in Thurston's syndicated newspaper column of tricks, ghosted by Walter Gibson.

However, the trick was still recognized in the magic community as being Thayer's in 1934, as shown in a controversy surrounding Harry Clapham's “Debunking Modern Magic” column in The Billboard. In the Sep. 22, 1934 issue of The Billboard, p. 26, Julien Proskauer, on behalf of the Society of American Magicians, accused Clapham of exposure and other matters in his columns. Clapham counter-attacked in the same issue, p. 55, by pointing out that Proskauer had, in a booklet of tricks Proskauer had written for Seagram's Whiskey, “exposed item No. 56 in Thayer’s magic catalog Biffo.” William Hilliar followed this up by reprinting a telegram from Joe Wilkes Kendall in the October 6, 1934, column, p. 46, stating that Biffo had been removed from the fourth printing of the Seagram's booklet. (Research by Bill Mullins.)