I don't think he is using mouse balls. All of the mouse balls I have seen are smaller diameter than the core Brett is using.



No. I don't. However, if you have the required number of mouse balls, you can use them without any kind of covering at all. They handle well as is. I have used them with the Charlie Miller cups.

There are probably a large number of people in your area who would be delighted to crochet sweaters for those things. See if there is a local knitting club.

I use to use mouse ball with my Charlie Miller cups as well. I loved the weight of them.

Wow, so I wonder if all crochet-covered balls are handmade? Is there some dark, hidden factory in NYC where people are knitting ball covers? No doubt, under threat of having to watch the 21 card trick if they slack off.

I know that there are people in India who spend a lot of time making crochet balls. Morrissey is the largest manufacturer of them in the world, and they state that theirs are hand made.

Brett's are handmade, as are RnT 2's. So are those from Danis.

I'm glad this came up because I have a question that is a bit off the thrust of this subject but still in the general ballpark. My set of cups and balls is getting old and has seen a lot of use -- it's a Morissey set from the '70s. My cups have lost their shine; my balls (crocheted, of course!), which used to be white, are now gray and less appealing. Should I wash them? With what kind of soap? Is it okay to soak them? I don't want to ruin them because I might want to use them in the future and, in any case, they have sentimental value to me. I know there will be someone here who can lend a hand and point me in the right direction!

That's a really good question, David. I don't have a ready answer. Morrissey balls are usually covered with wool. My instinct would be to say to clean them with Woolite, which has worked for me on other types of woolen items.

Here's what I'll do. I have some fairly old white Morrissey balls. I'll take some of them and give them the woolite treatment to see what happens to them.

I'll let you know the results in about a week.

Otherwise, it might be best to replace them with a new set, and put the old ones aside to preserve them.

Posted: Mar 13, 2007 11:14am
I just got off the phone with Dan Morrissey. He warned me against soaking the cork balls in water. This is very likely to cause the cork ball inside to expand, which will ruin the balls. He made one other recommendation that I will try myself before sending it to you, because he wasn't sure if would work well on white wool balls.

His initial recommendation would be to put the old ones aside and keep them as they are, and order a new set of balls from them.

Maybe if you brush your white Morrissey balls with a tooth brush? Can you get a home dry cleaning solution and dry clean the balls?

When I spoke to Dan Morrissey about this, he said it was the first time anyone had ever asked about how to clean the balls.

The dry cleaning solution is probably a good idea. You have to really be careful what you use on wool and cork, though. Dan suggested that one of these new Tide pens might work. I'm going to get one and try it out on some balls I have here that I don't have a sentimental attachment to.

A toothbrush scares me, unless it was very soft. How about just dipping the balls in Woolite, quickly, like a tea bag?

Oh! Which brings up a side-idea. I suppose tea could be used for the opposite reason! If you wanted to prematurely age your balls, perhaps to match an old set of cups and to fit a particular story. Could be quite interesting!

All I know is what Dan Morrissey told me. He said not to get them wet. Woolite is a detergent. To get the dirt out of the wool, it requires getting the wool wet, not just dipping it like a tea bag.

Dry cleaning solution isn't actually dry, it's wet. Just like Woolite. Or did I misunderstand your answer?

I bet you could spray carpet cleaner on your balls. Many carpets are made of wool. Or at least they used to be. I would figure if you sprayed them lightly and let it dry you could brush the balls off. The challenge would be to NOT soak your balls as you don't want the cork to get wet. I bet there are are fabric sprays you could use as well.

I should have been more specific. While dry cleaning solution is wet, it is not "wet like Woolite." Woolite does not dry out of the item as rapidly as dry cleaning solvent. The old spot removers, such as Carbona, which is now unobtainable, evaporated within a matter of seconds. They had the distinct disadvantage of being highly toxic, though, which is why you can't find them any more. It was this kind of solution that I was thinking of, not something you would soak these things in.

There are dry cleaning solutions that you can brush on and remove, as hendoo suggested. This was I was thinking of when I mentioned dry cleaning solutions. There are also a few dry cleaners, such as the ones used for architectural drawings, that are basically powder erasers, but I doubt they would be of much use.

A spray carpet or upholstery cleaner might work. But many of those are silicone based. I don't know what that would do to the corks and/or the wool.

However, let's take a dose of reality.

A new set of balls, from the very same people who made the original balls, will cost $5.50 CAD to $7.50 CAD a set, depending on the diameter of the balls. This works out to $4.69 USD to $6.39 USD plus postage. Postage to the US from Canada for a set of these would not be very much at all. By the time you have gone out, purchased some kind of cleaner, applied it, allowed it to do it's work, brushed it out and so forth, the cost of the cleaner plus your time will be much more than the replacement cost of the balls.

The first crocheted balls that I can remember, came from an old golf bag. The crocheted balls had felt inside, were the size of a golf ball and were used for practice like a wiffle ball is now. I’m not sure when they first made crocheted practice balls for golf, but judging from the type of vintage of golf bags they all came from, maybe as early as the late thirties or early forties. Most of the ones I have found have been white with an exception of two red ones. They may have not been the source or inspiration for the ones used in magic but the time line is close.

I was just looking through some old Genii magazines. Vernon made the cover a number of times, one of them being September of 1966. He is shown with a set of Paul Fox cups (not the silver Iranian cups we know and love so well) and a set of white crocheted balls, as well as several other items he was well known for.

Since the first combo sets did not come out until 5 - 6 years later, it's fairly certain that the combo set had little or nothing to do with the preponderance of crocheted balls used with the cups.

My great-grandmother had a crocheted belt that went around her bathrobe. On each end was a pair of large crocheted balls. I remember these from my childhood. That would have been around 1945 or so. I'm sure she had worn that bathrobe before I was born.

But it's still a mystery how these got to be used with cups and balls. I'll ask Johnny Thompson if he has any information about this.

Thanks for clarifying, Bill.

Very interesting, Tom, I hadn't thought about the crocheted balls crossing over from some other application.

Why not? Baseballs did. "Superballs" did. Rubber balls did. Magicians were perfectly happy to use cork balls until around the turn of the last century. The balls are one of the props that we borrow from wherever we can find a suitable one.

Among my favorites are the smaller Fakini balls. They are expensive, but they work well.

Or you can get some interesting 3/4" balls from Oriental Trading Co.

It's just that it's hard to imagine where else "balls with sweaters" might be useful! Have you heard this Golf connection before, Bill?

What are Fakini's balls made from?

No, I haven't. I don't play golf, so this connection went right past me.

Fakini's balls are actual silicone rubber balls. He does all the molding of these himself. I have found that his golf balls are ideal final loads for certain miniature cups, because they are completely silent.

I contacted him by phone a few weeks ago to order some balls, and mentioned that I used his golf balls as loads. So he sent me some "reject" balls in various colors. It took me a long time to find the flaws in them. They would have been perfect for stage work, but he is a craftsman. He takes pride in his work. I finally spotted the flaws.

He cleans the balls up meticulously, whether they are the golf balls or the regular round ones.

The "high bounce balls" that we get at party supply stores and from gumball machines may not be silicone rubber at all. Fakini thinks they are probably vinyl of some sort.

I'm not a plastics expert, so I don't know these things. I just know that the Fakini balls are really great for use with the cups, and the 1/2" balls work very well with mini cups.

Posted: Mar 17, 2007 11:19pm
I just got two sets of chop cup balls from Morrissey that will help me restore my original Al Wheatley chop cup to its original configuration. The total cost for balls and postage was $24.00 CAD, which is about $20.00 US. That's not a bad deal. It certainly was a better method than trying to dye the balls.

I'd recommend replacement of the balls and preservation of the original ones for their sentimental value.

What color did you get, Bill?

I checked out the Morrissey web page; they have balls in many colors. A nice variety, but it seems that most magicians use red or white. I've don't remember ever seeing a magician perform with blue balls, which is sort of surprising, but perhaps I just failed to notice.