He COULD produce some "good stuff"! I'll check my file of "egg bag material". I'm quite sure that he published a very good booklet about the Sterling/Mardo bag.

I bought one of his "Fifty dollar egg bags" at a Ring Swap Meet in Seattle, about 20 years ago, for Five bucks. After a few thousand shows it still looks "new".

I agree that as Dick said above Busby could produce some "good stuff." The world of magic will forever be in his debt for his trick "Into the Fourth Dimension... and Beyond," and we have Roy Walton to thank for distilling the convolutions of that trick and paring it down to the stunning miracle we now know as "Card Warp." And Bob McAllister took "Card Warp" a step further and released his version with a card and a dollar bill to create "Green Warp," which was published in _Richard's Almanac_.

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez
Speaking of Bob McAllister, he was a good friend and mentor of mine back in the early 60's when I knew him in Norfolk, Virginia where he worked for a local TV station. I am still trying to find out who is the person who said that he obtained the rights to Bob's tricks from hs family. There is a lot of great stuff that Bob came up with that could be collected and released in one book. And if good copies of his performances on "Wonderama" and other shows could be found, an accompanying DVD would be a great bonus. Bob did release an instructional VHS tape of some of his magic that is available at places like amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Magic-VHS-......er+magic

Yes! Bob McAllister, IIRC, was BOZO on a Norfolk TV station in the early days. I met him when he was still in high school. He drove the "old geezers" in Ring 103 nuts with his off beat and very funny approach to magic. "They" were all hung up on change bags, "production" boxes, "tubes etc.

If anyone knows anything regarding "rights" to McAllister's material, it might be Chuck Windley. Chuck is still in Norfolk. I don't think he is "in" the Café, but, he does get on face book.

Busby's Sefalaljia Cabinet sold at the recent Potter & Potter auction for $1,500. He's still selling well in the After Life:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/......&rows=20

I bought a set of Busby hallmarked Paul Fox Cups while at Denny & Lee with Dick for his lecture/booksigning event last September. They're VERY nice cups, and rare. I agree with Richard Kaufman's remarks, above, and I will say this, which I believe is a true statement, and one for all of us to consider:

This "World of Magic" that we all live in is a LOT smaller on the inside looking out than on the outside looking in. If you lose your good reputation..... that bad word travels FAST.

I know several magicians who have created bad reputations for themselves......and that's something that none of us want. You EARN your reputation, and it can go QUICKLY. Jeff Busby's reputation was severely tarnished with his "Braue Notebooks" FIASCO........per my earlier post in this thread........and it went downhill from there.......

Oh really?

So, it's like the difference between a completely original groundbreaking new idea and the tweaks and imitations that it inspired?

Not the tweaks and imitations it inspired, but improvements.

I think groundbreaking new ideas in magic are often (sometimes unjustly) overshadowed by improvements that follow, such as:
1) The original Sawing a Woman in Two by P.T. Selbit, although revolutionary at the time, was later overshadowed by Horace Goldin's improvement, which in turn was overshadowed by the Buzz Saw illusion and the Thin-Sawing when they came out. No lay person in today's world would have been entertained by Selbit's presentation. I'm not even sure they would have been fooled by it.
2) There was a dove production that was taught in the original Chavez Course that I think has been completely overshadowed by Channing Pollock's streamlined methods.
3) Passe Passe Bottles was a great trick in its time, but I think it has become somewhat overshadowed by The Multiplying Bottles
4) R.C. Buff's "Acrobatic Cane" has become completely overshadowed by Lewis Ganson's "Floating and Dancing Cane"that evolved from it.

It does behoove us, however, to remember what Sir Isaac Newton said when someone compared his extraordinary achievements in physics and mathematics: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

And as has sometimes been said in the magic literature: "Many a good magic trick has been ruined by 'improvements.'"

----- Sonny

Hear, hear! Well put Sonny! Some effects have indeed been improved, and others have not.