The David Baldwin Magic Collection II

Card Bouquet. European, ca. 1890. Five cards appear at the edges of a handsome bouquet of roses resting on the magician’s table in a shining hammered brass jardinière. The cards make a sudden visible appearance, one at a time, but unlike similar effects, their backs face the audience. At the performer’s command, the cards turn around, revealing themselves to be the same cards chosen by spectators but a few moments before. Mechanically complex. Restored by John Gaughan. 21” high. Requires special table for operation (not included). Believed to be the only known example of this effect. A prized possession of the Petrie family, best known as the proprietors of “The House Where Tricks are Born” – the P&L magic factory of New Haven, Connecticut. The intricate works at rear of bouquet include a saw-tooth mechanism reminiscent of Okito and Willmann’s card restoration frames, and spring and pulley-driven mechanisms, as well – all activated through a plunger device that runs through the jardinière and table. Petrie was, perhaps accidentally, a collector of unusual and rare magic props, among them tricks owned and used by many masters of the art’s “golden age.” This Card Bouquet was kept in the Petrie family home for years after the closing of the famous factory.