Anyone who knows Bill Palmer from around the forum, knows he is a great authority on the cups and balls. He is also a great positive influence here on the forum. Recently, he spoke with us about his collection, the history of the cups, different types of cups and best of all, some stories about when he knew Dai Vernon and Tommy Wonder.

We spoke mostly about the cups and balls, as he has an 800+ cup collection and has created the Cups and Balls Museum.

Here's the link:

http://www.reelsinmotion.tv/magiclantern014

Enjoy!

Scott

Thanks for the kind words, Scott. I'm no authority or expert. But I have a LOT of cups. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the cups. Anyone who wants to contact me about cups and balls, paddles, mentalism or nailwriters, drop me a PM!

458!

Bill, I think you are an authority.
You know what is what and when they
were made and so forth...

You knew what type my dad's were...

btw...He has my dad's cups in his museum now...

I sure do! And it was great to see Louie and Arlene again, after all these years, and to see Frances (AKA Marshall Thornside) live and in person!

The August issue of MUM has an article about the Museum, as well.

Posted: Sep 1, 2007 7:40pm
Here is an update on the museum. Last week in Berlin, I presented my lecture on the history of the cups used in the cups and balls to the Second European Magic Historians and Collectors Conference. I was one of two Americans who spoke before this august body. The other was Bill Kalush.

The lecture went well and was well received. It has a 70 slide power point presentation that accompanies it. Some of these slides are actually what you might call "sub-slides," because they are set up in such a way that there is animation when you run the presentation. That is, lines add themselves to the existing matrix. There are other ways to do this than multiple slides, but this worked well for me and was easy to do.

Dr. Steffan Taut also presented some material that meshed with this. He had a photo of a drawing of the whole wall of tomb 15 at Beni Hasan, which has the controversial painting of the bogus cups and balls workers. Taken in context of the rest of that wall, there is NO doubt that these fellows are not doing the cups and balls. His lecture also concerned the Westcar Papyrus, which we got to see later that afternoon in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin.

Some magic historians thought the Westcar Papyrus had been lost. Evidently, it was in the GDR.

Well, that explains where you were!

458...huh,huh...I get it...

Glad someone finally straightened out the story of the Tomb Painting... Milbourne Christopher really screwed up history with his interpretation.

Thank you, Bill, for the updates. That must have been a great presentation. Congratulations on a well received presentation.

Scott

Scott...just a quick note to say I loved the interview with Bill. I've heard many of those stories first hand from him, but they never grow tiresome! I'm loading the Eric Decamps interview as we speak!!

Good stuff!

Bill, I'll be seeing you in October, right?

Rick

Actually, Christopher had help. Percy Newberry, who presented the paintings of the whole tomb in one of his books about Beni Hasan, referred to these fellows as playing at "thimble-ring." Obviously, he meant "thimble-rig." But Newberry had forgotten some of the most important points of Egyptian painting. In Egyptian painting, EVERYTHING that is necessary for the painting to make sense has to be there. There is no ball or pea under the cups. So, it doesn't make any sense in that context.

S.W. Clarke put a drawing of the painting in The Annals of Conjuring and labeled it "Egyptian Cups and Balls Workers." He made a leap of faith that Milbourne Christopher picked up and ran with.

"Not an authority or expert"!? What? Bill, you're far too modest! This guy "knows all and sees all".

By the way...that set of cups you got from me for the Museum look fantastic on the site!

Steve Thomas

I agree with you fully. Bill is far too modest and he knows a lot but do not admit. He is a GREAT GUY!

It was really fun listening to Bills voice, love the Texas accent!