Magic Collection of Jim Rawlins Part IV

Victorian Nest of Boxes. London: Hamley’s Grand Magical Saloons, ca. 1880. Magnificent set of six nested wooden boxes, the largest finely decorated with brass trim, claw feet, and ornaments in the Victorian style. A borrowed ring, watch, or banknote appears in the smallest of the locked boxes at the command of the magician. Largest box 8 x 7 ¾ x 6 ¼”. With Hamley’s maker’s plaque underneath largest box. Locking mechanisms and lids of several internal boxes lacking, one foot bent. Rare. Reminiscent of the Thayer “No-Assistant” version of this venerable conjurer’s feat, this model is perhaps one of a handful of surviving props marked with the Hamley’s tag. The firm, founded in 1760, is operated today as a toy shop, but in the late Victorian era and into the twentieth century, was a supplier of professional magic apparatus.