Conjuring Credits

The Origins of Wonder

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Phantom Tube, Ghost Tube, Organ Pipes and Genii Tube

Precursors can be found in a flower-production tube invented by Robertson Keene and described in Goldston's 1907 Magician Annual, p. 47. Keene's tube was corrugated on the outside, which formed D-shaped compartments inside, large enough to hide dart-tipped feather bouquets. Plugs in one end of these compartments allowed the tube to be displayed empty. In 1908 Edmund Younger (Li Chung Soo) invented the Sen Yen Barrel Mystery, which was an improvement on Kellar's Growth of Flowers. Younger's idea was to install a “barrel”-shaped insert inside the flower cone, to conceal the load. The principle, on a larger scale, was that of the Ghost Tube, but Younger claimed his Barrel Mystery was conceived several years before the invention of the Ghost Tube. (See The World's Fair, Sept. 2 1939, bottom of fourth column of “About Magicians” by B. W.) Chung Ling Soo was also known to use a combination of the Organ Pipes and double-loading ghost principle in a flower production. This apparatus is thought to have originated in Germany. (The Organ Pipes began with only two tubes, but grew to six, as explained in W. H. J. Shaw's ; then in a 1911 “Charmed Organ Pipes Improvement”, a third was added, and all three were gimmicked like the Phantom Tube. Other variants followed, in March 1912 by Curtess Dressen of Victoria, Australia, and by Ernest Noakes in his Magical Originalities (1914, though the invention of the trick is claimed for 1908). And before this appeared a birdcage production from a cylinder in Goldston's Tricks and Illusions (1908, p. 55), which tube was closed at one end. For an even earlier version, using liquids, see Bland's 1890 version of the “Pyramids of Egypt” in More Magic, p. 375.) Jules Danby (Daniel J. Brewer) published his “Silver Tube Illusion” in the April 1919 Magic Wand, Vol. 8 No. 2, p. 25. The conical gimmick in his tube was attached to the inner side of the tube, off center. This was the closest version to what was to become known as the Phantom Tube. When the Norton-Bretma Company manufactured the tube, c. 1920, they centered the position of the gimmick, which became the standard construction. Stanley Norton of that company, inspired by Devant's “Diogenes” illusion, also came up with the idea of capping the ends of the tube and casting finger shadows (a ghost at work) through the paper caps before breaking one and making the production. Because of the shadow play, this became best known as the Ghost Tube, but was alternatively called the Phantomo Tube, from which Phantom Tube may be been derived. Shortly after releasing the Ghost Tube, Norton-Bretma marketed the “Ghost” Drum Head Tube, combining the principles of the Ghost Tube and the old Drumhead Tube to produce a double load. The Genii tube marketed in 1933, first probably by Al Baker and Martin Sunshine's Broadway Magic Shop, was a still later variant, originally made from a rectangular tube, the two sides of which hinged open to display the inside. A circular version followed.