Select Secrets: Rare & Important Magicana

Eck, Johnny (John Eckhardt). Johnny Eck’s P&L Die Box. New Haven: Petrie & Lewis (P&L), ca. 1940. Four-door mahogany box with fancy brass hardware. A solid wooden die placed inside vanishes after repeated “by-play” with the audience, reappearing in a formerly empty hat some distance away. One double door. 2 ¾” die. All elements well-worn from regular use. Owned and used by sideshow and circus performer Johnny Eck. Die Boxes made by P&L are scarce in their own right; the company was at its best when manufacturing magic tricks made of metal. This is the only P&L box we have encountered with a double door. Eck’s reputation as a circus and sideshow performer has become the stuff of legend, as has his involvement with the vaudeville magic show of Rajah Raboid and his turn in the cult classic Tod Browning film, Freaks. But few know that Eck was also a magician in his own right, oftentimes performing for children’s parties in his native Baltimore. This die box and the magic props in the following lot were used by the half-man in his own shows, and were obtained by the consignor after Eck’s passing from his brother, Robert.