milk pitcher principle

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Jack Shalom
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milk pitcher principle

Postby Jack Shalom » July 25th, 2016, 12:30 pm

Who invented (or first used) the double-wall liquid container principle (not necessarily the milk pitcher item per se) for magic?

I.M. Magician
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Re: milk pitcher principle

Postby I.M. Magician » July 25th, 2016, 1:00 pm

My best guess would be Hen Fetch. He wrote a booklet on milk pitcher magic.

Richard Forster
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Re: milk pitcher principle

Postby Richard Forster » July 25th, 2016, 3:37 pm

I suspect it is much, much older. I recall a talk by William Spooner in 2011 at EUROCOL (European Magic History & Collections conference) on "Inexhaustivle Vessels" (see http://www.european-magic-history.com/London.html). A quick search reveals, for example, a paper by him entitled "Evidence for Conjuring in Pre-Columbian Peru". Whilst these discussions are on Lota vases, this would seem to be a closely related double-walled liquid container principle.

Philippe Billot
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Re: milk pitcher principle

Postby Philippe Billot » July 25th, 2016, 4:22 pm

You can see informations here :

http://geniimagazine.com/wiki/index.php ... lk_Pitcher

But I remember another source in Original Magical Creations by Stanley Collins published in 1915. See The Filtering Ink Experiment.

See also here : http://www.conjuringcredits.com/doku.ph ... lk_pitcher

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: milk pitcher principle

Postby Richard Kaufman » July 25th, 2016, 5:37 pm

While the Lota is ancient (in the true sense of the word), I have also read that Stanley Collins invented the Milk Pitcher.
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Max Maven
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Re: milk pitcher principle

Postby Max Maven » July 25th, 2016, 9:08 pm

I'd be interested in a citation regarding Stanley Collins in this regard.

So far as I know, the precursor to the Milk Pitcher was the DeMuth Milk Bottle, devised in the early 1930s. The pitcher format was claimed by Richard Himber, who marketed it in 1943.

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: milk pitcher principle

Postby Richard Kaufman » July 25th, 2016, 9:09 pm

Max, what you write makes perfect sense. I can't recall where I believe the information re Collins came from. If I had the time, I would look in Eddie's book I published!
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MagicbyAlfred
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Re: milk pitcher principle

Postby MagicbyAlfred » July 26th, 2016, 3:41 pm

According to Conjuringcredits.com, "In his Who's Who in Magic, p. 418, Barton Whaley credits the milk pitcher to [Louis] Nikola, in collaboration with Roy Enoc, in 1917, although he contradicts this in Encyclopedic Dictionary of Magic, 1989, p. 447, where he puts it at Richard Himber's door. The source of the Nikola-Enoc attribution is apparently a trick called “Transit of Wine”, described in Nikola's 1934 book, Magical Masterpieces, p. 112. This trick uses a double-walled drinking glass..."

The milk pitcher was the first illusion I ever acquired when I started performing magic shows at the ripe old age of 6 years old (mainly at my parents' and various relatives' parties). My parents took me to what was then the "Third Avenue Bazaar," a magic shop in Brooklyn, and when I saw the trick demonstrated, I knew I had to have it. It was one of the featured items of my show, and it will always be near and dear to my heart.

Stephen Burton
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Re: milk pitcher principle

Postby Stephen Burton » August 22nd, 2016, 4:55 pm

Nikola gives the credit for the beginning of the concept to another magician, Roy Enoc, in Magical Masterpieces, page 112.

"As far back as one can remember, there was an old toy consisting of a double-walled drinking glass containing a fluid between the inner and outer walls, the idea presumably being to show a vessel that could be inverted without the liquid escaping-a not very profound mystery. But an ingenious magician (Roy Enoc), got a brain wave and reconstructed the vessel (first a tumbler and later a jug) with a removable lining (to admit of a re-setting) having a plug in the centre of the bottom whereby the fluid spread between the outer and inner walls of the vessel could be released and allowed to find its lowest common level."

Jonathan Townsend
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Re: milk pitcher principle

Postby Jonathan Townsend » August 22nd, 2016, 8:47 pm

There's some mention among archeologists of old potter's demonstration vessels with double walls - that became puzzles and later on the dribble glass.

Then there's the double walled glass principle - which is likely as old as glass blowing when craftsman started showing their skills.

In magic - the "multum in parvo" item in the old catalogs - using the clear glass and relatively opaque milk to apparently make a lot from a little.
This guy? http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 24533.html

The use of the principle to apparently vanish some liquid... tough call after all those paper cone tricks from the Hoffmann era.
Mundus vult decipi -per Caleb Carr's story Killing Time


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