While the effect of making two wooden matches penetrate each other has been credited to Boris Zola (see the claim made in Genii, Vol. 12 No. 4, Dec. 1947, p. 99), it well predates Dr. Zola. The earliest written description so far discovered appears as “The Penetrable Match” in Magic, Vol. 10 No. 9, June 1910, p. 66. Stanyon states no provenance for the trick, giving an impression that it was not even then a fresh invention.

Walter Gibson did credible early write-ups in The Magic World, Vol. 4 No. 9, Dec. 1920, p. 121, and in The Sphinx, Vol. 18 No. 8, Oct. 1919, p. 192, Vol. 18 No. 9, Nov. 1919 p. 215 and Vol. 20 No. 2, Apr. 1921, p. 71. In these he includes various ways of clipping the matches.