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Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
The Classic Color Changing Silk has been around as long a long time. It is described in the Tarbell Course. It is an instant sale at magic shops across the country to parents looking for real magic tricks for their children interested in performing magic. That alone should tell a person the power of this mechanical magic trick.
In my early teenager years, I witnessed the strong magic that this trick possess. The local magic club put on a yearly magic show at a local school, and one of the young members performed the mechanical single Color Changing Silk for his portion of the show. It was a simple presentation. He placed a green silk into the famous Tarbell Cone, then held the red silk in his hand, and passed his hand over the red silk. It changed to Green instantly! He picked up the Tarbell Cone and opened out the cone which in the form of a square. There laying in the center of the yellow opened out cone was a red silk. It was that simple, and he went no further with the transposition effect. He could have did it in reverse, but the magic already happened. I thought that trick was a miracle. You see, was not aware of the Color Changing Silk at this point in my magic education. I still remember this trick after all these year. It caused me to smile whenever I hear of he Color Changing scarf trick mentioned. Note he used the simplest of props and created a memorial moment in my life. I can see this same routine being used for children show, with all the yelling and excitement that many children performer use in many of the tricks they perform. Miscalling colors and I can see the children's jaws dropping when the silk changes from Red to Green. To many people just pass over trick like this, as it is so fast, and they are looking for substance in props and a routine already prepared for them. When in fact just a little thought can create several different entertaining routines with is single item. I have not idea why many import magic manufacturers produce the double Color Changing Silk more then the Single, but the single is just as magical and can be used in other ways as well. When I was doing dove magic, I came up with using the 18" and 24" single Color Changing Silk for the production of the doves. For me it added a little more magic to production because they witnessed a fast magic effect, and then got hit with a live bird appearing out of the folds of the silk. Later when I no longer was doing Dove Magic, I used the Color Changing Silk to produce lit candles. Yes, there was some experimenting to overcome some of the troubles using a gimmicked silk, but they were worked out. I thought the magic was worth the added researching, experimenting, and work involved. Don't overlook simple tricks no one else uses. The famous magicians that have gone before us was always using tricks no one else was using. How foolish the inquisitive magicians must have felt when they find that they had the very same trick setting in a drawer. Rice's Silk King Studios is the only place high quality Color Changing silks can be obtained yet today. Single and Double Color Changing mechanical Silk: http://www.silkkingmagic.com/Rice's%20Color%20Changes.htm Available in 12", 18", and 24" silk sizes. The Double is only available in 12" and 18" size, mainly do to the wide arm span needed enact the effect. It may be of interest to some, that Abbott's Magic makes a single 36" Sunburst Color Changing Silk that is a beauty. http://www.abbottmagic.com/Abbotts-Sunbu......lchg.htm I would be interested if anyone else has seen the magic in the Classic mechanical Color Changing silk and created a magic routine with is piece of magic. |
bowers Inner circle Oakboro N.C. 7024 Posts |
I agree Bill.I have the 18" single change silk
from Silk King Magic.And I really love it. I use it in conjunction with another effect. Todd |
jimgerrish Inner circle East Orange, NJ 3209 Posts |
Spellbinder has a "Whap!" color changing silk in his "Silent Lecture Notes" that will be worth waiting for in the new year. It is a self-contained silk, much like the mechanical color change silk from Tarbell, but it can be held at two adjacent corners and whip-whapped in traditional magician style to show both sides of a square silk. Then "Whap!" (from whence it gets its name!) the silk changes color and is again held by two adjacent corners and whip-whapped to show both sides. The "Silent Lecture Notes" will form The Wizards' Journal #28 in 2015. Of course, you'll have to sew it yourself since no one manufactures these.
Jim Gerrish
magicnook@yahoo.com https://www.magicnook.com Home of The Wizards' Journals: https://magicnook.com/wizardsTOC.htm |
Harry Murphy Inner circle Maryland 5444 Posts |
WOW! Thanks for the walk down memory lane Bill. I bought my first "professional" single color changing silk from Harold Rice back in the late 60s. I still have two in good shape stored away.
I had a simple routine that was used for family/kid shows for decades. In 1976 on a trip to England (and Supreme Magic) I bought a routine called "Mixed-up 20th Century Silks." It used a double color changing silk gimmick. It was not the best quality. I rebuilt the props using Rice silks and used the routine for decades. I wore out at least two sets. In fact, since your post I went looking for my old notes on the routine. I am thinking of remaking the props and reintroducing the routine. I'll be using Rice again. The effect was apparently going to be the 20th Century Silks. That is two silk handkerchiefs knotted together and put into a glass, a third silk vanished to appear between the first two. However, the colors of all were miss-called (with the minor uproar that normally goes with this kind of thing) and when the handkerchiefs were pulled from the glass the colors had magically become those named. The routine always got a good reaction and was a solid piece for the middle of the act. I used a colorful anodized aluminum glass (popular in the day and cheap and easy to find) to hold the handkerchiefs (and hide what needed to be hidden). One thing I did was to cut "ears" from some 9" silks and sewed the ears to the join of the silks in the double color change. It looked like a real knot. It was a little detail that I thought helped sell the prop as "normal". Maybe an overkill to some but I worked in small venues with the audience within six feet. The details always my confidence if nothing else. Jim the Spellbinder take sounds very interesting. That is a manuscript I'll have to get! Keep us posted! When I wanted to do a pure or classic color changing silk routine I always used the two 18" or 22"un-gimicked silks with a Palmo (from Rice). Different routine for different venues. But like Bill I have a fond place and great memories of the old' gimmicked color changing silk. Thanks Bill for the memory!
The artist formally known as Mumblepeas!
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Bill!
Thanks for your description of the young magician performing with the color changing silk and the Tarbell Cone! I just "love" such simple, visible, instantaneous effects. --especially, when they "answer" all of my criteria for performance. Milbourne Christopher "occasonally" came up with an idea that appealed to me. I'll go dig in my "Hugard's Magic Monthly" file. He had a slightly off beat use of the Tarbelll Color Changing Silk. I thought it clever enough to use in my lecture (with credit to Frank Joglar, who actually was Milbourne Christopher). I want to mention it by the name that Milbourne used in Hugard's, and give the date, number and page of Hugard's, in case someone might like to resurrect it and use it. There's some good stuff buried in old magazines! Basically, it was an instantaneous, visual, visible transposition of two silks from hand to pocket. It may take me a day or three. I liked it especially, because it was instantly repeatable, which made it nice for strolling work.
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Merry Christmas!
I found it! "Hugard's Magic Monthly" September 1947...page 349..."Silk change" (!) Here's the effect in Christopher's own words: "The magician holds a red silk in his right hand, a green silk in his left. He tudks the green silk in his trousers pocket and focusses attention on the red. He holds it, s diagonal corner in each hand in front of the microphone stand. He pulls it first to the right against the microphone stand, then to the left. Instantly the red silk changes to green. He takes the other silk from his pocket. It is red. He repeats the effect. Needed: A color-changing silk of the type mentioned earlier... A red and a green silk to match those used in the color change silk." I'm not going to type that whole darn thing! It's a half page! Bill: If this sounds interesting, PM me.
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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wally Inner circle 1828 Posts |
Who sells a good colour change silk gimmick, Been looking at Mikames. UK,
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Motley Mage Special user 572 Posts |
Bill, thanks for this! And Harry, I am glad I am not the only one who thought adding a set of knots to the double color change made it better! I don't know if anyone else even sees it, but it convinces ME more!
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Michael Baker Eternal Order Near a river in the Midwest 11172 Posts |
I recall that as being one of the first tricks I ever saw. I used to make them for myself years ago. My sewing skills are hardly good enough to consider marketing such a prop, but they worked great for me.
I like the idea of combining it with the cone. That takes it beyond just a quick bit.
~michael baker
The Magic Company |
Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
Quote:
On Mar 5, 2016, wally wrote: It is a gimmick so you can use a regular silk, changing color. The problem is, you have to not mind spoiling the silk. All I can say in a open forum. |
funsway Inner circle old things in new ways - new things in old ways 9981 Posts |
I worked with a young man with sever physical disabilities, motorized chair and a mostly useless left arm.
He loved silk effects and wanted to do color changing silks -- kinda difficult when you can't grasp the gimmick part. He could, however, pinch things between his arm and a small table I rigged on the chair. So, here is how we pulled it off. He pulled out a green silk form his bag and held it between his knees to hide the gimmicked end. The same with red silk, one now draped over each leg. He placed a square of red tissue paper on his table, placed the green silk thereon and crumpled it in into a ball. Then a green tissue with the red silk inside. He talked about affinity and how doing magic caused people to focus on how things were the same instead of different. With each ball in turn gripped beneath his arm he could poke through the tissue and extract the silk of the new color to match the tissue -- the silk place back between his legs After the second color change he would toss the tissue balls out as gifts -- and he just waved the silks and put them back in the bag. Later he extracted one of the silks and used it in another effect (his idea -- didn't learn it from Dick
"the more one pretends at magic, the more awe and wonder will be found in real life." Arnold Furst
eBooks at https://www.lybrary.com/ken-muller-m-579928.html questions at ken@eversway.com |
Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Hee hee~ --good one Ken!
With me, it started out as "one less silk to carry! After a few shows, I 'woke up", and realized its "subtle effect" on the spectators. SERENDIPITY! I've always considered the Tarbell color change silk as a "weak" prop, if done by itself. The heat is on the gaffed silk. By combining it with other silk(s), that problem is somewhat solved. That's why I liked the Milbourne Christopher "handling" that I mentioned above. Apparently, no one else thought much of it, 'cuz there were no comments. I especially liked it, as it was immediately repeatable, thus good for walkarounds. Frankly, I was never overly impressed with Mr. "C"s magic. His rope knot routine was clever and commercial, but, after his, "There she hangs!" line when doing Asrah, I 86d him. BTW...Abbott's, many years ago, sold a red/green gaffed silk that had a white border. Red on one side, green on the other. The silk would be placed 'flat' on top of the loose fist, with the red side up. Then, a 'well' could be poked in with the index finger of the other hand. When the other hand reached in at the heel of the 'fist', the silk could be pulled through the fist, and the green side would be visible! I have, since 1945, a red and green silk with a white border. One side had a triangular flap, You could hold, by one diagonal corner the silk corner and the flap corner to display, e.g. green side. A shake, simultaneously releasing the flap, and the silk visibly changed color. I've never seen another silk like it. Frankly, it wasn't too convincing! I didn't get it from a magic shop. My dad had bought an old fashioned roll top desk, and, I found the silk, along with two other plain 15" silks, in a "secret" compartment (secret compartments were "common" in such antique desks.) They were my first "real" silks! The war was still "on", and silks were unobtainable. --I didn't know about magic shops at that point, anyway! Posted: Mar 6, 2016 01:12 pm OOPS~! In both of those silk props describe in my last post, above, the WHITE BORDERS WERE WHITE ON BOTH SIDES! The white borders 'covered' the edges of the red & green sides. Sheesh! sometimes describing something SO SIMPLE, gets COMPLICATED!: I just remembered: I think that the Abbott catalog name was "Pull Thru Silk".
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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wally Inner circle 1828 Posts |
Have you seen this one. run it on to the new colour change silk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcqZufUQoFY&feature=youtu.be
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Brad Jeffers Veteran user 377 Posts |
That video is from 2014. Was that color changing silk ever put on the market?
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Brad Jeffers Veteran user 377 Posts |
I just found out that this was an April fools' joke!
However, when I was searching around for this, I came across a color transforming heat activated fabric, so maybe this is possible after all. |
Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
Dick Oslund, I remember making a special tripe to Abbott's just to see the PULL THROUGH SILK Color Change. Boy was I disappointed, and it would not fool anyone. They simply took a white heavy fabric, and sewed 2 smaller colored squares of cloth, one on each side. It was also very small, maybe 12" square or so. The main drawback was you could not show the scarf on both sides.
Make fist with one hand, poke the center of the scarf into the top of the fist, and then pull from the bottom of the fist, the center of the scarf. As it was pulled through, only the inner square of the scarf changed color, it still had this huge wide white border all around. Needless to say, I did not purchase this item. |
Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
I share your thoughts on Abbott's "pull thru"!
It MAY have played in a silent act as a "throw away" trick, but, I believe that you and I share the thinking that "throw away" tricks, generally don't amount to much. I wish that I could find some information on the "pull thru"(?) silk that I mentioned above. I still have it, after 67 years!
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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thomasR Inner circle 1189 Posts |
I have a 12" single color change silk from Rice / Silk King that I love. I use it as a pocket handkerchief and it's a running gag in between tricks. I just pull out the silk, make mention of it, change the color, and replace it in my vest pocket without ever acting like I did a trick. It's fun because the kids notice it right away, and half the time the adults miss it.
I also have a 12" red and blue silk with dye tube from Rice, I can keep the red silk in my vest pocket and grab it in place of the CC silk, and change it to blue using the dye tube method. And just for another commercial.. Silk King Silks are gorgeous and worth every penny. I just ordered some 24" silks in red white and blue a month ago and I almost don't want to practice with them they are so nice. |
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