Some good ideas on this thread.

Multiplying bottles idea is clever.

I've always liked the example of routining the prop to be some sort of eccentric "transporter device" invention as in Henning Nelm's example he gives in "Magic & Showmanship".

Like many utility devices the Square Circle is nothing on it's own. It's what you do with it . What's sad is to see someone use it just to produce a line of a few wrinkled little silks ... if it's going to be used for silk production then fill the stage ! You can produce a huge amount of silks from the average Square Circle
I used to have a beautiful one made by Chalet Magic .

Has anyone ever made up the Allakazam Hat version of Square Circle shown in Mark Wilson's book ?
That design has always struck me as pretty clever.

They were selling them a while back on the Hocus Pocus Magic site , but I think the plans are fairly clear in the Mark Wilson book to make it on your own if you are at all handy with small tools.

Here's a photo on Paul Gross's blog :

Allakazam Hat square circle

How about using it for a torn and restored card effect. You could use jumbo cards even with the right one and since only a portion of the secret is seen you could effect a once piece at a time restoration. The pieces vanish and reappear in in the SC... full card in the end that can be examined.

Just a thought.

Kex

I have used the Square Circle production for many years. The best way to sell a square circle production is to load it up with lots of stuff. My final load was an item the dealers use to sell called a large hat coil, these were about 6 inches in diameter, (they were stock market ticker tape rolls)
I would reach in and pull out about 6 feet of the tape and start winding it onto my wand while moving my wand in a circle about 5 feet in diameter, it would take a long time to produce the entire ticker tape.
Just because an effect is old really had nothing to do with how useful it is. If you are performing for the public you can fairly certain that no one in the audience as ever seen the Square Circle production.

Lots of the comments I have heard over the years about an effect being old and therefore not being useful have come from what I call Non-performing magicians. Would these same non performing magicians be critical of Johnny Tompson, Norm Neilsen or Marvin Roy for doing the act for many years? Keep in mind a non performing magician really does not know what a audience of layman is going to like.
I would recommend asking magicians that have been around for a while and that have been out in the trenches performing for the paying laymen.
I have seen lots of non performing magicians over the years that cannot entertain an audience.

Fill it with hershey's kisses (depending on your square-circle size, this may get expensive; my production cost about $17 each show).

Inside the upper lip of the gimmick, duct-tape a metal cup (like the kind you find in those portable bar sets).

Show box/tube empty. Bring out a hershey's bar, open it up, and break it into a bunch of pieces, which you drop into the cup... tear up the foil wrapper, crumple, drop that in also... Reach into your pocket and take out a book of matches, and with it, a palmed piece of loosely crumpled flash paper, while holding the book over top of the SC, secretly drop flash paper into the cup on top of the broken candy bar and wrapper.

Light match, drop onto flash paper (BIG FLASH SHOOTS STRAIGHT UP), pick up tube and Square at same time QUICKLY, and (seemingly) hundreds of hershey's kisses pour out and all over the table and onto the floor.

(carefully and gently) toss handfuls to the audience as they applaud wildly.


Use music. Ya gotta use music. Adds so much to it. (I used "metamorphosis" by David Gustafson's Defying the Laws of Physics CD, when I was doing this routine like 6 years ago.

And BE CAREFUL with the flash paper. Experiment with very small pieces first. And when you drop that match in, DO NOT be looking down into your gimmick. The fire SHOOTS up out of that cup. You could singe your hair and eyelashes and eyebrows. I know. I did.

I don't do that routine any more. Take it and run.




Mine looked like an old radio for awhile. Dials on front. Wood-grain contact paper on outside. Brass-colored "grill". And the tube was covered in ugly-green fabric, so it looked like an ugly-green fabric and brass speaker on front.

The first objects I pull out are silks. I pull them out in a silly manner in front of the kids. The last object I pull out is a chinchilla.

Can anyone provide resources for plans to build this? Is it covered in other illusion plans that are easily available?

It's probably in Tarbell. Almost sure of it. And I know it's in Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic, too.

Once you understand the idea, you don't actually need plans or measurements - you can make it as big or small or weirdly-shaped as you want. It a beautifully flexible idea. Heck, you could probably use some Cheerio's boxes.

The Square Circle is one of the most versatile props in a magician's tool box. After nearly fifty years of magic, when I can't find a way to use them, I'll let you know. It is still my favorite for product placement and awards presentations when it cannot be the first opening trick. (For openers, I like the THIS (Improved).)

I also think Square Circles coming with a Line of Silks as standard equipment should be required bylaw! It is the fastest way to make a small trick/act into a stage act and really use the whole stage.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

There are several variations with construction plans to be found on my site:
Jim Gerrish's Hardboard & Duct Tape Book 1 is a start, with his "Production Tubes," and then he has the "WAH Production Box" in The Wizards' Journal #10 which uses principles established by Harold Westgate, Al Aldini, and Louis Histed (W-A-H), combined together by Jim Gerrish, which is a variation combo that has the advantage of being easily adapted to the season by changing the covers. Jim's other contribution in this area is in The Wizards' Journal #15, "The Nutcracker Sentry Box" which combines other ideas by Louis Histed (the inventor of the original Square Circle) which allows you to reload the production box halfway through the routine. You don't HAVE to use the Christmas Nutcracker Theme to get a "pumped up" version of a Square Circle production.

Another cool thing about the S/C is that its SO VERY EASY TO DO that you can teach someone very quickly HOW to do this. The ONLY THING I use my S/C for anymore are award presentations...but over the last year, I began teaching this to the CEO of the company who is going to present the award. It gets a BIG REACTION from the audience that their CEO just performed an amazing piece of magic and gets them all the applause which always gets me a BIG TIP and a CALL BACK to perform again!

TA DAH!

Christopher

A Squared-Circle need not look like one. It could be a circus tent and center ring for children, it could be a Victorian time-machine for adults.

The glory is that it can be made to look like ANYTHING!

And, anything can come out of it, not just silks, though their great, with ingenuity an amazing amount can appear from a small space.

I also like Hypnodream used it as a running piece throughout his show, it worked in a logical way to make his other props appear.

I think the props gets a bad-rap because it can look like an old fashioned magic-ie prop, but with imagination it can be a miracle.

My thoughts,
Walt

If you are looking for a nice Square circle,which is made for 6 medium size production parasols, lot of different picture silks, line Of silk or running beads. It is a tall and very well made prop that is called Fantastique production Saint Pied. I got it from http://www.magie-climax.com in France. I use it in my show, and my Finale is a 6 Foot Rabbit in hat Silk on a flag staff. This works great.

Prop modification opportunity!

If you have the MAK Double Load Square Circle, Dollar Tree (for the price of $1.00) sells a glass tube (vase) over twice the height of the glass fish bowls that came with the prop.

It fits in the same place! Imagine producing more than a quart of ice cubes after producing other loads! The world's largest Bloody Mary! Nearly a half gallon of real strawberries! Bubble Gum! _____________ And you can pass it around!

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

I made my first one in the 70's with a milk carton and tin cans that fit inside.
I used yellow material and taped it on the milk carton. I cut out "bars" in the front.

Later on, I got a Mak square circle which I still use today. It is one of the most deceptive I've seen. One thing I've seen young magicians do is pull out a tiny bit of stuff. Be sure to pack it full.
I close the show, with all the picture silks, streamers, beads, spring bills, and a "The End" silk for the end. I pack it full to the top. And I use fast paced music.

ACE

One thing that I have done is to get really long strands of beads from your local craft shop. Have your SC placed near the edge of your table. At the end of your routine, pull out the end of the strand and let it run down to the floor. The momentum will keep the strand flowing out of the tube and on to the floor. This will continue on it own for a while, depending on the length of the strand. This has always gotten a strong reaction.

Bob Phillips

Bob, yes that is what I use. I pull out a big Pirate flag and say "Pirate Treasure!" and let the beads flow. I've used "diamonds" and "gold".
Right before that, I pull out a large hundred dollar bill silk and then the spring bills, saying, Money! that's what I'm talking about!, and I take it and hold to close to me and act like I am leaving the stage.

I'm going backwards here. For all the picture silks I pull out at the beginning, I either go to the audience and "pull" an invisible dragon, etc. from behind the kids ear, or better yet, I have the kids throw me an invisible dragon, clown, butterfly,etc. I have all the 36" picture silks. The kids are involved as they comment which one came from them. I'm thinking of adding my headless silks to this and having volunteers on stage.

I've always used it as my closing number.

I even set up a little flash pot in mine for the beginning, it just shot a puff of flash paper. For libraries I used one of the "snow pens" Then I bought the refill cans and just used those. Then I bought a hand held confetti launching gun that uses C02. That's a nice mess.

ACE

Posted: Jan 29, 2010 3:01am
Have ya'll seen Axtell's "The Green Machine" based on the square circle?

http://www.axtell.com/gm.html

Anyone have one yet?

It looks great.

ACE

The prop modification is a great idea, take a look to axtell recycle machine...a good prop, a nice plot and infinite opportunities of presentation.
I have 2 mainly uses for a regular square circle:
1- To present and award to anyone on a show
2- To appear a small fishbowl full with fishs etc ( This appear in Mark Wilson complete curse in magic and stills works )
Best wishes,
Hansel!

I agree! I have pasted a link below of me, performing my opener at a YMCA. It was a small crowd, only about 30 kids and a couple of staff members. It is a "square circle" effect ( more like a black art effect) where I produce flowers. You will see in the beginning of the piece, that one of the flower holders flies off my table. I have performed this routine hundreds of times and this is the first time it happened, which goes to show you that anything CAN happen in a live performance! About 15 years ago I had purchased a Video Tape marketed by the late Bob Hargraves from Warwick, RI, it was called "The Magic of Books" and in his video he performed a fish bowl production using the method on my video. When I saw his video, I knew I had to make my flower production on that idea. Its not the greatest video and I am not the most graceful performer (nor do I try to be!) but I just wanted to post it here to my friends, to share a different idea for the square circle effect and what I really think is a perfect production for flowers. Comments, ideas, constructive criticism welcome!

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_annotate?v=ZxDImncqHBA

Houcs Pocus had some of the Allakazam Top Hat square circles from the M.W. course made in a limited edition. I have one I might sell if someone is interested. Only 50 were made, this is the large size, I have (I think) #33, it is autographed and it has all the extra paper work. PM me for details. You can pull a rabbit out of a HAT with this!

ACE

As posted before, the adapability of this effect to ANY venue is great. It is all in the presentation.