This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/25/2020
Tarbell Orange Vase Combination. Los Angeles: F.G. Thayer, ca. 1927. A small orange, removed from a wooden vase, multiplies, vanishes, or reappears; one orange changes to a silk handkerchief, which then jumps inside the vase, or vice versa. A combination Ball Vase/Ball and Silk Vase and Multiplying Ball routine, all in one. Finely wood turned vase lacquered in black, with gold finial and legs and green interior, wooden “orange” and matching shell. Diameter 2 5/8”. Faintest wear to finish, but very good condition overall. Rare. Perhaps the finest example of the wood turning talents of Floyd Thayer. Devised by Dr. Harlan Tarbell and advertised as part of his famous Tarbell Course in Magic in the late 1920s, the Orange Vase was offered for sale for $8.50 to his students. Tarbell worked in Chicago, but the prop was crafted – personally - by Floyd Thayer in Los Angeles. Thayer was the acknowledged master magical craftsman of the era, and arguably the finest wood turner in the field. The delicate nature of the gimmicked portions of the vase have left more than a few of the surviving examples of this prop in fair to poor condition; frequently, the finely turned wooden ring essential to the trick’s working is split, or even absent. The example offered here is truly fine – about as fine an example of magical artistry in wood as exists from the golden era of Thayer’s business.