Conjuring Credits

The Origins of Wonder

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Color-Changing Handkerchief

The earliest instance of this effect occurs in Professor Kunard's Book of Modern Conjuring, 1890, p. 25.

Professor Hoffmann presents an origin story for the effect in Later Magic, 1904, p. 241, in which he tells of G. W. Hunter making a suggestion to David Devant that led Devant to create a method, which he debuted c. 1892. This is two years after Kunard's description was published, but Hoffmann may have intended only to have indicated the form of the trick in which the handkerchief is passed through an apparently empty paper tube to effect the change. In the effect Kunard describes, the handkerchief is passed through the performer's fist. The method involves a barrel-shaped gimmick with a cloth pouch fixed in its center.

Dai Vernon credited Julius Driesbach, an employee of the New York magic shop owned by Martinka, for inventing the more streamlined dye tube, with a dividing ribbon at its midpoint, which has since received the most favor as a method. Vernon dated Driesbach's invention at around 1911. See The Vernon Chronicles, Vol. 2, 1988, p. 55.