Let's try again folks— does anyone out there remember the carnival/illusion plans that were drawn (poorly) by A K Brill and advertised in Billboard and later in Amusement Business Weekly? Would like to hear from anyone who knows about them.

Yes I remember the "Brills Bible". As a matter of fact, I answered an ad in AB and sent a check for $20.00 to get a copy one time. The check went through but I never got the copy. I never pursued it. I found some of that stuff on ebay under a search for "carnival games".
Best regards, Sir Real

Years ago I had a “Brill’s Bible”. It was a U. F. Grant type of thing. That is, it was vague descriptions and even more vague illustrations. Brill had “borrowed” freely from other works (most of Grant’s stuff was retyped and had a hand drawn illustration added) without any credit given. It was more an idea book than something you could trust to build something from.

Mine disappeared many years ago. I loaned it to a friend and never got it back. Oh well, I haven’t really missed it. I do have a couple of Xeroxed chapters lying around (a couple of stage vanishes that I was interested in building and tacked the copies on the bulletin board above my work bench).

The rights to the Brill Plans were bought back about ten years ago by film maker David Hewitt. After selling reprints for a while, he seemed to have lost interest. There is also a magician down in the Washington DC area that has put out the Brill Bible (but not the plans) on CD-ROM. You can find that on eBay. Also on eBay is a fellow in Indiana that is selling a number of photocopies of some of the plans. He sells under the name of Whizzer0123. It is not Don Birdwell.