Who autoproclaimed himself the "king of cards"?, although he wasn't actually very good?

Houdini


Let's try it jeopardy style, I'll give the answer and you get the question

Answer is
Jos Bemelman

LOL Good one, the great Tommy Wonder is Jos Bemelman.
OK
Apart from magic, what was another actually astounding talent of Mr. Dai Vernon? He shows it in his Revelations series.

100% correct, sir!

Who is the biggest collector of Houdini's items?

Silhouette cutting.


What was one of Ping Pong's brother's names?

The answer to the first question is not correct. I'm not sure that my answer is correct either; however, I can name a magic book that preceded any that have been listed so far.

A briefe and pleasaunt treatise, entituled, naturall and artificiall conclusions by Thomas Hill, was published in 1581, and preceded The discoverie of witchcraft, which was in 1584, and La Premiere partie des subtiles et plaisantes inventions (Clever and Pleasant Inventions, Part One), by J. Prevost, which was also published in 1584.


Although I don't own a copy, I have read that Hill's book contained relatively poor tricks. The The discoverie of witchcraft was primarily about how it was unjust to persecute people for being witches, or wizards, and it had only one chapter that contained magic tricks. Clever and Pleasant Inventions, Part One (there apparently is no Part Two) is exclusively about magic, and it also has some pretty good tricks, such as "To Cut a Thread into Many Pieces, Then Seem to Have Rejoined Them All Together."

Ok, now my question, since all previous questions except the first are now null and void!

Who invented the Flushtration Count?

Ok, I'll give a hint. It's in the section on sleights at the end of the book, The Card Magic of Nick Trost. That reveals an earlier source I don't own and the name of the creator.

Bro. Hamman, I thought, no?

Jack Shalom

Actually, it depends on how you define "Magic Book." Both Treatise and Discoverie have sections devoted to conjuring tricks, but they are not the central focus of the manuscripts. Thus, that would make Prevosts book the first book written exclusively on magic. The first English book entirely devoted to conjuring would be The Art of Jugling, which is completely plagiarized from the section on magic from Scot's Discoverie.

The 21 Card Trick, I believe, can be found in Giochi de Carte, published in 1593.

I'm afraid you didn't answer in the form of a question?

Payne wrote:

Who decides the definition?

Just to make it simple, I'll concede that a magic book must be all about magic. Thus, the aforementioned work by J. Prevost is correct, and thus, invalidating my answer and validating earlier questions.

(So, who made me boss? ... nobody. I'm just proposing one way to resolve the issue by conceding).

That leaves my question hanging, so I'll post about that in another section of the Magic Café in the near future.

gdw's question is now the active question:
gdw wrote:

The library of Congress because you meant props but you wrote items. Books being items, it's by far the library of Congress. With books, I'd probably nowadays be the second... but you may have meant private collector of props and paraphernalias? Then I'm out of the race. During his own lifetime it undoubtedly was Sidney Radner. Your question might need to be detailed or made more precise.