the specialty of coin magic.
Bobo’s background is international. His great grandfather, Jean Beaubeaux, immigrated to America after the disastrous Franco-Prussian war, but his new found neighbors never called him by name for the simple reason that they could not pronounce it. So in desperation, Monsieur Beaubeaux changed the spelling of his name to Bobo, the way it was pronounced in French. Bobo was born in Texarkana, Texas, in 1910, but the family moved to Ontario, Canada, and ere he was twelve years old, the Johnson Smith mail order catalog arrived, packed in small type with a wonderland of household and shop gadgets and all the gaudy allurements of Fourth of July celebrations, Halloween pranks and carnival entertainment, including that amazing section on Magic that first opened the door to the satisfaction of that ‘glorious curiosity in the impossible.’
Bobo’s father operated a restaurant in Windsor, Canada, across the river from Detroit, and Saturday nights found the young Bobo crossing on the ferry to witness the wonderments of Laurant, The Great Leon and Thurston, though he never saw Houdini. The restaurant was a rendezvous too for show people and drummers who displayed the wit and gags of the road, including such ‘startlers’ as the paper balls under the hat which young Bobo added to his rapidly expanding repertoire.
“My first performance was at an amateur show at the Windsor Theater,” writes Bobo, “and if memory hasn’t failed me, I got the hook, I was so scared.” But persistency prevailed and skills improved thanks to the arrival of The Tarbell Course at the age of sixteen. “The Course taught me my first real magic, for with the Course came a metal box beneath whose padlock were contained the essential gimmicks of a new world of wonders, the thumb tip, the wand shell and the pull, and numerous other shortcuts to the supernatural.”
High school days were over, the family had returned to Texas and a career had to be entered, which happened to be as a carpenter at the bench, making kitchen cabinets for a dollar a day. It was a princely income, and it went for magic. After two years Bobo had learned that his eyes were worth more than his hands and he became a free lance window display decorator, splashing merchandise weekly in a hardware store, a department store and nine windows for the J. C. Penney Company. He was also booked as ‘The Great Bobo’ at churches, schools and charity dates for his standard minimum fee of three dollars a show. Fancy apparatus was too expensive, and Bobo depended upon sleight of hand with cards, thimbles and coins, and closed with a handcuff escape, the Bean cuffs.
Experience as a window display showman as well as the church and school dates soon led to club dates, and here the price jumped to five dollars per show, “which was a lot of money in those days.” The extra income could mean only one thing: ‘Illusions’ must be added to the show, and so Sawing A Woman In Two was papered all over town. He faithfully pursued The Tarbell Course as the lessons came month by month, practicing two hours a day on each lesson for six months to perfect a routine before presenting it.
And then the big break came, his reward for years of patience and persistency, his first contract for a lyceum booking. On the recommendation of Percy Abbott, the magic manufacturer of Colon, Michigan, Bobo was accepted as a substitute for Harold Sterling and went on the road for one hundred and twenty-five dollars a week. He was out for the fall season, September to December, in the Rocky Mountain region for The Grapham Music & Lyceum Bureau, giving school and college shows throughout Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. The school houses were so small it was known as the ‘Kerosene Lamp’ circuit. A charming assistant was now added to the performance who was soon transformed into Mrs. Bobo.
Bobo’s schedule now is thirty-five weeks a year. He says his steady booking is a simple system. “If whistle stops want magic, I give it to them at a smaller fee, as the jumps are short and booking is continuous.” He has learned in his close-up experience in the smaller school and college auditoriums that this type of audience appreciates a sleight of hand show over an apparatus show because they know that the latter type show means ‘trick boxes.’ Then, too, there are other advantages in playing the smaller towns. Lyceum and school audiences are of a higher intelligence and appreciate a more cultured show, where success is not dependent upon wisecracks or doubtful humor to get laughs.
Bobo’s interest in coin magic began when a medicine-show magician taught him The Sympathetic Coins, with pennies. That was long ago—soon after he had acquired proficiency in presenting The Unbreakable Match. Sleight of hand always fascinated him—probably because, as he explains, “I am one of those fellows who enjoys working with his hands—learning crafts and skills that require delicacy of touch challenges me. Painting, cabinet making, photography —even just ‘making things’—provide my chief sources of enjoyment. Coin magic requires skill, but no magic appears so spontaneous, so “spur-of-the-moment” to an audience. Coin tricks are of a visual nature—they are “sight tricks” and audiences like tricks that require little concentration. Money always fascinates people, and magic with money is doubly fascinating. Even the jingle and clinking together of coins is fascinating. Our shows always feature coin tricks. People admire and appreciate skill—coin magic impresses them as magic requiring skill.”
“Bobo has extraordinary qualifications for the task of producing a book on coin magic,” says John Mulholland, Editor of The Sphinx. “He has a canny understanding of the magic the public likes and he selects only such effects for his performances as have genuine appeal. His high reputation as a professional magician has been earned by his delightfully entertaining performances. Both his mastery of magic and his knowledge of audiences he brings into the field of coin magic which long has been his favorite branch of trickery. Mysteries with coins have intrigued him for many years and he has spent a great deal of time and enthusiastic energy collecting, devising, and mastering coin tricks.”
This book is the result of Bobo’s fascination with the magic of coins. The tricks have been gathered, mastered, tested, catalogued, and filed away like a collection of precious stones, and it has taken many years to get this collection together. Here are superb examples of the art of pure sleight of hand—magic with coins—and magicians the world over will be grateful to Bobo for presenting to the fraternity his splendid collection of coin tricks.
—JOHN BRAUN
Acknowledgments
Most of the material in this book, including my own, is based on accumulated research, ideas, and effects of other magicians. Directly or indirectly, I am therefore indebted to all coin workers.
An honest effort has been made to credit the source of all material as accurately as possible, but slips may have crept in. If I have failed to recognize the originator of any idea, sleight, trick or move in the following pages, I hereby offer my most humble apologies.
I owe thanks to all my contributors, but more especially to Milton Kort. Although not so well known as he should be, he is one of the most modern-minded and practical of our present day sleight of hand artists. He gave unstintingly of his time to help whenever I needed it. A generous sprinkling of his genius will be found throughout the book.
I also acknowledge with gratitude the assistance of numerous persons who helped me in gathering and preparing material for this volume. J. G. Thompson, Jr. was responsible for several effects other than his own contributions. Dr. E. M. Roberts’s revolutionary sleeving technique and the tricks therewith should be an inexhaustible source of ideas for years to come.
Stanley Collins has rendered the magical fraternity a great service in setting down his recollections of great coin manipulators of the past, together with some of their almost-forgotten tricks.
I am deeply grateful for the invaluable assistance given me by my good friend John Braun in editing the material, making suggestions, and for his work on Chapter XIV. He deserves much credit for any success this book might receive.
Finally, I want to
