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Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 9:39 am
by Richard Hatch
The latest Erdnase blog from Thomas Sawyer (http://swerdnase2011.wordpress.com/) shows that an "H. M. Andrews" was housed in the same location as printer James McKinney in early 1902, when the book was in active production. The title page triangle can be re-arranged so that the letters spelling out "H. M. Andrews" line up perfectly, as was done earlier with "W. E. Sanders". Coincidence? Certainly one of them is, and I suspect both are.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 10:35 am
by Richard Hatch
Similar to the above, Richard Wiseman's candidate, H. L. Andrews, who worked near McKinney and had a wife named "E. S. Andrews" can also have his name spelled out by choosing one letter from each of the 9 lines of the inverted triangle on the title page. As can the brother for whom he worked, "A. H. Andrews" and the brother who wrote about the family history, "H. C. Andrews". Coincidences all, in my opinion.
Here's a link to the information on Wiseman's candidate:
http://www.richardwiseman.com/erdnase.html

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 11:46 am
by Carlo Morpurgo
You can choose one letter per line, but you can't slide the lines and align either of those names vertically....coincidence? ;)

If you assume that the lines can move around freely and if you take into account letter AND space frequencies, then the ballpark chances of getting WESANDERS are about 3%.

If you impose additional restrictions on how much the lines can slide then this number goes down quite a bit. With some less restrictive constraints than "not go over the margins" I calculated about 2/1000 of getting WESANDERS.

But, remember that in all this we are assuming that we're dealing already with 9 lines, as many as the letters in the name... This should be taken into account also when evaluating "coincidences"....

Having said so, to me this is a "fun fact" to add to the theory, and it will remain so even after a conclusive proof of Erdnase being Sanders. Maybe he just wanted the subtitle to form a nice wine chalice....

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 11:52 am
by Richard Hatch
Carlo Morpurgo wrote:You can choose one letter per line, but you can't slide the lines and align either of those names vertically....coincidence? ;)


Sorry, I don't understand the constraint on sliding the lines. Why can't they be lined up vertically?

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 12:03 pm
by Carlo Morpurgo
Richard Hatch wrote:
Carlo Morpurgo wrote:You can choose one letter per line, but you can't slide the lines and align either of those names vertically....coincidence? ;)


Sorry, I don't understand the constraint on sliding the lines. Why can't they be lined up vertically?


Because the whole point was that you can form WESANDERS by sliding the lines while staying within the margins of the page.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 12:24 pm
by Richard Hatch
Carlo Morpurgo wrote:
Richard Hatch wrote:
Carlo Morpurgo wrote:You can choose one letter per line, but you can't slide the lines and align either of those names vertically....coincidence? ;)


Sorry, I don't understand the constraint on sliding the lines. Why can't they be lined up vertically?


Because the whole point was that you can form WESANDERS by sliding the lines while staying within the margins of the page.


Ah... I apparently missed the "whole point", my bad. Thanks!

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 1:48 pm
by Richard Hatch
Ok, I guess I'm still confused on the sliding of letters issue: If from the first line one uses the H in SLIGHTS, the second line, the L in GAMBLER, 3rd the A in DETAIL, 4th the N at the end of KNOWN, 5th the D in AND, 6th the R in CARD, 7 the E in ONE, 8th the W in DRAWINGS and finally the S in SMITH, does the sliding of the lines exceed the margins of the page? Not to my untrained eye, spelling out vertically, "H. L. ANDREWS", Wiseman's candidate...
Similarly, by using the M in GAMBLER on the 2nd line in place of the L in the same word, you get the fellow Sawyer spotted in the same building as McKinney at the time the book was in production. What am I missing about the special character of the WESANDERS sliding?

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 2:30 pm
by Carlo Morpurgo
Richard Hatch wrote:Ok, I guess I'm still confused on the sliding of letters issue: If from the first line one uses the H in SLIGHTS, the second line, the L in GAMBLER, 3rd the A in DETAIL, 4th the N at the end of KNOWN, 5th the D in AND, 6th the R in CARD, 7 the E in ONE, 8th the W in DRAWINGS and finally the S in SMITH, does the sliding of the lines exceed the margins of the page?


I can't make it work with the original text. Even if you manage somehow to align the H and the L then you have a problem with the D in the fifth line.... (the word "OF" is cut off on the right).

Richard Hatch wrote:Similarly, by using the M in GAMBLER on the 2nd line in place of the L in the same word, you get the fellow Sawyer spotted in the same building as McKinney at the time the book was in production.


this is obviously worse than the previous situation, due to the second line.

ps:

This makes me think that perhaps we are not using the same original title page....The one I am using is the one publiahed in David Alexander's article. Maybe the original page in the book was wider?

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 3:04 pm
by Richard Hatch
Carlo Morpurgo wrote:This makes me think that perhaps we are not using the same original title page....The one I am using is the one publiahed in David Alexander's article. Maybe the original page in the book was wider?

Ah, thanks Carlo. The title page reproduced in the David Alexander article is severely trimmed on all sides (likely unintentionally due to space in the article). The first edition margins are much wider.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 3:46 pm
by Carlo Morpurgo
I am glad we sorted this out... Anyway I think that the WES alignment fits better with other aspects of the Sanders theory (without proving anything)

1. playing with his name, vertically or otherwise
2. wanting to use a full anagram as an author
3. wanting to leave traces on how to discover his identity
4. eliminating "andrews" via the "and ruse artifice"
5. using "SWE shift" to identify the first three letters
6. "artfully avoiding ambiguous anagrams" (?)


If we had solid proof that the above Andrews were the authors, then the vertical alignment of their names in my mind would be as much fun.

By the way, can you say more about 6. above?

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 7:03 pm
by Carlo Morpurgo
Carlo Morpurgo wrote:I am glad we sorted this out... Anyway I think that the WES alignment fits better with other aspects of the Sanders theory (without proving anything)

1. playing with his name, vertically or otherwise
2. wanting to use a full anagram as an author
3. wanting to leave traces on how to discover his identity
4. eliminating "andrews" via the "and ruse artifice"
5. using "SWE shift" to identify the first three letters
6. "artfully avoiding ambiguous anagrams" (?)


If we had solid proof that the above Andrews were the authors, then the vertical alignment of their names in my mind would be as much fun.



I meant "would NOT be as much fun".....

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 11:25 pm
by Carlo Morpurgo
Carlo Morpurgo wrote:Because the whole point was that you can form WESANDERS by sliding the lines while staying within the margins of the page.


Maybe a better and more reasonable way to state this would be "while staying within the margins of the text". I am not sure how they where printing books back then, but I assume that even then the text had to stay within a certain boundary, well inside the actual page by a predetermined amount.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 4th, 2011, 5:25 am
by magicam
Havent read the Genii article or sunk my teeth into the Erdnase literature for years, but FWIW offer two observations, which may have been previously made by others.

First, the inverted pyramid graphic design on the title page is nothing novel. This design has been used in many books printed over the past 500 years.

Second, what significance, if any, do we attach to the fact that the first three primary words of the proper title of Erdnases book (artifice, ruse, subterfuge) are all synonyms for each other, meaning trickery or deception? Why would the author indulge in such high-profile pleonasms? To demonstrate his deep vocabulary? (Doubtful.) To show that he used a copy of Rogets Thesaurus? (Also doubtful.)

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 4th, 2011, 9:48 am
by Richard Hatch
Carlo Morpurgo wrote:6. "artfully avoiding ambiguous anagrams" (?)


Sorry, this was a joke for those at the Erdnaseum. I did find a book with this quote in it in the Sanders' B&B 2nd story bathroom (Ricky Smith and I were staying in what was believed to have been Wilbur's room), but the book was a contemporary object, as was a bottle of hand lotion with the bold initials ESA printed on the label. "Finding" them added to the fun of the weekend, but not to the scholarship of Erdnase identity research!

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 7th, 2011, 10:57 pm
by Carlo Morpurgo
magicam wrote:First, the inverted pyramid graphic design on the title page is nothing novel. This design has been used in many books printed over the past 500 years.

Just yesterday I was browsing a brand new calculus book and I found this

http://tinyurl.com/3p6ypey

(it's the very last page of the book)
could not help smiling...and no, I am not going to try to find hidden names in it...

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 9th, 2011, 2:19 am
by Bill Mullins
Thomas Sawyer's Erdnase Blog has recently been focussed on 73 Plymouth Place/Court in Chicago, the address of James McKinney when he printed the book.

A 1905 map shows the building there. 73-75 Plymouth are all 1 building, and it is 80 feet tall.

[Tom - if you are following this, and want a copy of the map, email me offline and I'll send it to you.]

It would appear that the street numbers have been changed (it is now the 500 block), and that the building has been torn down. The east-bound lane of W. Congress pkwy occupies the space now.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 9th, 2011, 9:35 pm
by Marty Demarest
Rick Ruhl wrote:As a side note, Sandy Marshall and I have been conversing in email. Seems Jay had in his collection 2 EATCT from 1918 and one has M.D. Smith's autograph from 1947 in it. The other doesn't.


This is interesting considering that Whaley, Gardner and Busby, in The Man Who was Erdnase, state: "This [first edition] copy of The Expert, bearing Gallaway's bookplate [Edward Gallaway--typesetter for James McKinney and Company], still rests in Chicago in the collection of Jay Marshall..."

I wonder what happened to that particular first edition.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 9th, 2011, 11:57 pm
by Bill Mullins
Marty Demarest wrote:
Rick Ruhl wrote:As a side note, Sandy Marshall and I have been conversing in email. Seems Jay had in his collection 2 EATCT from 1918 and one has M.D. Smith's autograph from 1947 in it. The other doesn't.


This is interesting considering that Whaley, Gardner and Busby, in The Man Who was Erdnase, state: "This [first edition] copy of The Expert, bearing Gallaway's bookplate [Edward Gallaway--typesetter for James McKinney and Company], still rests in Chicago in the collection of Jay Marshall..."

I wonder what happened to that particular first edition.


See Lot #101.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 10th, 2011, 12:28 pm
by Hoo monkey
It occurs to me, while peering into this issue just a bit, that we are still within the golden period of research on WE Sanders. That is, given his death date, there are almost certainly still people alive who knew him.

Finding those people and interviewing them would be a great accomplishment.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 12th, 2011, 8:31 am
by Rick Ruhl
Bill Mullins wrote:
Marty Demarest wrote:
Rick Ruhl wrote:As a side note, Sandy Marshall and I have been conversing in email. Seems Jay had in his collection 2 EATCT from 1918 and one has M.D. Smith's autograph from 1947 in it. The other doesn't.


This is interesting considering that Whaley, Gardner and Busby, in The Man Who was Erdnase, state: "This [first edition] copy of The Expert, bearing Gallaway's bookplate [Edward Gallaway--typesetter for James McKinney and Company], still rests in Chicago in the collection of Jay Marshall..."

I wonder what happened to that particular first edition.


See Lot #101.


Ok So Sandy has a first edition and a 1918 edition. The 1918 edition has the autograph, as it has the King of Diamonds with no diamonds on the cover.

he sold me the other 1918 edition without the autograph. He had thought the the autograph was the first edition.

Marty, Bill, Ill email you guys the photos Sandy took of the autographed edition.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 12th, 2011, 8:40 am
by Rick Ruhl
Looking at the list, he must have the 1902 edition too. Bill I emailed you the pics, Marty, I sent them to richard to forward to you, as I dont have your email address.

This is the 1918 edition that has the MD smith sig on it from 1947.

Still worth about $3000-$5000...

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 12th, 2011, 5:34 pm
by John Bodine
For what it's worth, there are at least 6 different versions of the c1918 edition. I say circa because there is no date on that edition. Slight variations include different ads on the back, KH with and without the pips, number of blank pages, green/grey paper wraps, and 1 HB edition in light blue cloth.

My current count shows about 100 different editions/printing variations, many mentioned on the Genii page for the book.

John Bodine

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 14th, 2011, 6:01 am
by magicam
^^^
John, Id love to see that list someday! Thats a helluva lot of variants!

As a general comment (i.e., not directed at John), perhaps not now, but hopefully at some point in time the bibliographical study of TEATCT will reach a level where the correct use of terms like edition, issue, and state is essential/helpful to good communication about all the variants of this book. For example, if two copies of a book are identical except that one copy is bound in publishers wraps, and the other in publishers cloth, then these copies represent different issues, not different editions. Bibliographically speaking, there is no such thing as a hardbound edition or a softbound edition. Edition can only be determined by figuratively ripping the covers off a book and examining the text block only.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 14th, 2011, 12:09 pm
by Bill Mullins
My own collection of editions/printings/states/issues is pretty modest*, but I was able to quickly add a couple of entries to the Magicpedia page.

*Jason England brought his collection to the Erdaseum. It was a privilege to examine and handle not only two separate 1st edition copies, but also multiple Drake hardbacks, foreign editions, and a huge stack of the various "classic" paperbacks from Drake, Wehman, Powner, KC Card, etc. Also predecessors and related works such as different editions of "How Gamblers Win" and "A Grand Expose" and Hardison's "Poker". Thanks Jason!

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 15th, 2011, 12:52 am
by El Harvey Oswald
"Second, what significance, if any, do we attach to the fact that the first three primary words of the proper title of Erdnases book (artifice, ruse, subterfuge) are all synonyms for each other, meaning trickery or deception? Why would the author indulge in such high-profile pleonasms? To demonstrate his deep vocabulary? (Doubtful.) To show that he used a copy of Rogets Thesaurus? (Also doubtful.)"

None; redundancy for emphasis, or just commonplace redundancy without either an overt or meaningfully subconscious motive. Probabably not every gesture capable of being commented on was a deliberately coded message about his identity. And I suspect he didn't need a thesaurus to come up with those synonyms.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 15th, 2011, 2:05 am
by magicam
^^ Your guess is as good as mine (or maybe better). I dont know that such redundancy was intended as a clue to the authors identity, but do think it was intentional/conscious.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 16th, 2011, 11:36 pm
by Carlo Morpurgo
I am only now reading the new October Genii....I was shocked to see my name and all the "sliding stuff"!...Richard, I can't believe you put me in there! I hope you won't regret it... ;) Thanks!

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 21st, 2011, 10:22 pm
by Mal333
Hi all,

I have spent the last few days reading through this fascinating thread here on the Genii forums. I am a member of other forums not just about magic, and (I know it's been said before) this has to be the most interesting and engrossing thread I have seen online.

Many thanks to the tireless and insightful research that has gone into this subject by the many members of the forum, your work has been much appreciated.

Look forward to further development on this topic.

Ps I have always wandered why M. D. Smith was never asked to do a quick sketch of the man he met in the hotel room. Many questions were posed to him about the mans appearance etc, I would have thought being an experience illustrator, he would have been able to produce something that could be compared to the candidates for Erdnase. I understand it was 40 years since he'd met him, but I would've thought that it could have provided an excellent piece of information.
I apologize if this has been mentioned before.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 24th, 2011, 4:51 pm
by Bill Mullins
Jason England used to host a web page with picture of numerous editions of Expert (you can still find remnants of the page on The Internet Archive, and there is a Spanish language "borrowing" of it out there somewhere).

It appears that he's involved in a new site which is documenting the various printings and editions in much greater depth. When the site is ready, a link will be posted.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 26th, 2011, 12:31 am
by Mal333
Just reread the Genii article again (great work Marty), and I was looking at the photos of the diary pages. One of them has "James" written on it and the other page has the surname rearranged to "Saunders" adding a U. We know that Wilbur's brother was called James, am I right in saying that his full name is James U Sanders? If so then that could be were the U comes from in this rearrangement. Am I also correct in saying that James was only 2 years older? this could be where the E.S. comes from in the pseudonym. It could also have been a collaborative effort from the brothers?

Please ignore if these avenues have been previously explored or make no sense, I'm just having fun analyzing all this wonderful information.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 27th, 2011, 11:04 pm
by Geno Munari
This is a very interesting concept. Thank you for thinking of this idea. I also wonder why Smith was not asked to draw a resemblance of Erdnase, or maybe he has, and it is hidden away in some persoanl effects.

Great question.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 27th, 2011, 11:59 pm
by Richard Hatch
Hindsight is 20/20 and I sure many wish that Martin Gardner had asked Marshall Smith to do a portrait of the man he met. Smith did do a caricature of a magician doing card flourishes, which he gave to Gardner, but there was no indication that this was supposed to resemble Erdnase. This caricature is reproduced in TMWWE and the original sold with the large lot of Gardner's Erdnase research materials and first edition on eBay back in 2000

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 30th, 2011, 11:32 am
by Geno Munari
I am sorry for being remiss, but I want to sincerely thank all the organizers of the Erdaseum in Helena, Montana, especially Mike Vance, Marty, Dick Hatch, Bill Kalush, the Buck Brothers, (Wow do I like the playing cards they issued), the owners of the Sanders B&B, and all others I may have missed.

It was one of the great times I have ever had. Let's do it again!

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 30th, 2011, 7:37 pm
by Jason England
We did "do it again" Geno. We did it again on Saturday night. Where were you?

Jason

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: September 30th, 2011, 7:49 pm
by Dustin Stinett
I wish someone would find a B&B here that Erdnase stayed/lived in.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: October 2nd, 2011, 12:56 am
by Richard Hatch
This has apparently been up for a while but I only just now ran across it. Not sure it adds much to the discussion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPjH_cZRl1o

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: October 2nd, 2011, 9:13 am
by Tom Frame
Below the video, a misinformed dolt posted:

"For the Record it was Marty Demarest presenting David Alexander's theory first proposed in Genii that S E Sanders was Erdnase."

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: October 17th, 2011, 9:17 pm
by SwanJr
Has anybody been able to run down the Sunday News Tribune of Duluth for Nov 10,1901? I'd love to see the article on Sanders' writing plans.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: October 18th, 2011, 10:13 am
by Geno Munari
Hi
What article are you referring? The Historical Newspaper base doesn't have any records on this.

Re: ERDNASE

Posted: October 18th, 2011, 9:06 pm
by Leonard Hevia
Geno--

He is referring to the November 10, 1901 article in the Duluth, Minnesota Sunday News Tribune. Sanders was in Duluth, Minnesota by November the 9th and the article discussed Sanders' intention of writing a text book on mine timbering. Sanders had a manuscript with him at that time that was supposed to be the draft of the mine timbering book.

A reporter from the Tribune probably saw Sanders with a manuscript under his arm and might have asked him questions about it. Sanders may have thrown the mine timbering text book story to keep his manuscript of TEATCT sub rosa. That manuscript could have actually been his draft for TEATCT because Demarest notes that the mine timbering book actually consisted entirely of previously published articles, only two of which Sanders wrote.

Right after this Sanders heads out to Chicago to visit his parents. They are staying in the Windsor Clifton Hotel which is not far from the hotel where Smith met Erdnase.