This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/29/2022
Okito Checker Cabinet. Louisville: Okito/Redmon, ca. 1953. “Club Size” Checker Cabinet for the magical transposition of a stack of checkers and a glass full of rice. The props transpose locations between three compartments in the cabinet and a pagoda-like canister. Sold together with the matching Okito-made rolling table, featuring fine hand painted finish and decals/transfers in the Okito style. Intricate hand-painted finish and decal work. Hallmarked with Okito/Redmon decal. 20 x Okito’s checker cabinet was a refinement of a prop invented by his father, David Tobias Bamberg. Okito’s improved model was introduced to the fraternity in 1908, and was immediately added to Doctor Hooker’s famed collection of magic apparatus. As Okito himself wrote, “The first box made by my father had no feet, and when the switch had to be made, the box was tipped in a slanting position [ala the Die Box]. Even the fake which represented the twelve checkers was a poor imitation, as black strips of paper were pasted around the white fake to simulate black checkers. The whole thing was a home-made job; nevertheless the basic idea was there, and it was worth my while to elaborate on the principle. I claim I am the first who transformed the box into a cabinet and the first to decorate it in the oriental style. I am also the first to utilize the black-art principle to a box or cabinet and the mechanism employed to shift the interior compartment.”