This idea dates back at least to the late nineteenth century. It is listed in a Hamley Brothers catalog about that time. Professor Hoffmann described it in Later Magic, 1904, p. 27. He also attributed the first practical vest servante to David Devant on page 25. Eddie Fields remembers that in the 1930s, Audley Walsh developed a body servante for close-up work. And Fred C. Baumann published details on a similar servante made for coin work in his Odyssey of Classic Coin Sleights, 1983, p. 52. The Hamley Brothers servante was larger than the close-up and coin servantes developed later by Walsh and Baumann.