Tommy Wonder's Vanishing Bird Cage

[Tom Stone]

Another clip of Tommy surfaced yesterday. Probably his first performance ever of the Vanishing Birdcage - with some McCombical touches!
Compared with most other versions, it is amazing how rigid the cage looks!




And, as it happens, Tommy's brother Frank has just put the cage up on eBay. Including the take-up reel, the pulley system and a vest. It is an auction well worth checking out, for the close-up photos of the cage if nothing else. A lesson to be learned there - everything does not have to be polished and nice up close to look great on a stage.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tommy-Wonder-Es ... 2340f9a78b

[Arnaud]

Thanks for sharing Tom on this forum.

Must have been around 1985. Tommy performed this at our Magic Club Mysterium in Amsterdam. For one year I taped all our meetings, so be ready for some more clips to pop-up.

Arnaud

[Travis]

Wonderful, wonderful. I can think of no finer example of everything that magic can and ought to be than Tommy Wonder.

[Dustin Stinett]

It is a shame that Mr. Wonder's brother, who is running the auction, does not appear to know much about what he is doing with the admission: "I honestly have no clue of what I am putting up for auction here. What you see is what you get."

Hopefully the crate, which is in a separate auction, and the cage will end up together again.

FYI: The concept of the "crate" (box) was indeed Billy McComb's idea (as was using the see-through scarf--or "chiffon" as he called it), but that crate was likely built by Mr. Wonder. Billy's has a much different look to it. I note this only because the description in the auction could be interpreted in a way that a buyer might think that the crate was Billy's before it was Wonder's.

I do wish the family good luck with the auctions.

[John Carney]

Even after having read Tommy's explanation, it still doesn't seem possible! Looks so great.

I forget where I read this, but I think it was John Mulholland that might have been first to have the disconnected cage in a box on the table, and hooking it up to the pull during the course of the routine. This, of course, necessitated use of the take up reel as well.

[Dustin Stinett]

And Billy would have happily told you the details of how he shared it with Mulholland! (And then he would photocopy 16 or 20 pages of various issues of Abra that prove it and fax them all to you.)

[Sigh]