The Collection of Jim Rawlins Part II

Kellar, Harry. Harry Kellar’s Coffee and Milk Trick. Circa 1900. Bran or confetti is scooped two nickel-plated cups and lids are clamped on. When removing the lids a moment later, one cup is full of hot coffee and the other is full of milk. Height 6”. Considerably tarnished and worn from professional use. With a letter of provenance signed by Harry Willard, aka Willard the Wizard, stating, that the props were purchased from Harry Kellar by his father, Jim Willard, and that they were used in his own show, as well. This historic set of Kellar’s famous Coffee and Milk trick was displayed for years at the Egyptian Hall of Nashville, Tennessee. After the effect was popularized in Kellar’s show – which toured America for nearly two decades – the apparatus became a standard of nearly all magic catalogs of the era and beyond. So popular was the effect that small versions of the props were included with many early Mysto Magic Sets. This is, then, a set owned and used by the magician who popularized the trick. And yet, two generations of the Willard family of magicians, considered by many as the greatest conjurers the South ever produced, also used the apparatus.