Ken Brooke taught me a great routine, which I do.

You can see Paul Daniels do it on you tube. Uses a jumping stool. Ricky Jay has an amazing script for his.

The first magician I remember seeing was Steve Shepherd... he closed with the cage and wound up stripped to his boxer shorts, showing the cage was gone.

Not only was his cage gone, but the pull was gone too.

It took me 20 years to come up with a way to get rid of the cage and pull during a performance. And, IMHO, the best, simplest pull ever.

Bill Hegbli credits me in the opening post of this thread with a Vanishing bird
Cage innovation, but I am not familiar with this style cage and can take no credit for this. Unless there is another Richard Hatch involved in magic, I wonder who should have been credited? Richard Himber?

It is probably the other famous Richard Hatch, then, who sold tricks, and translated the 1st book called "The Magic of J.N. Hofzinser" in 1985. If you did not sell you idea for the vanishing bird cage, then it is not you. I would think there is more then one Richard Hatch in the U.S. Checked your website, and did not see any of the tricks and books Richard Hatch use to sell.

I did translate the Magic of J. N. Hofzinser by Ottokar Fischer from German into English, and also the first four volumes of Roberto Giobbi's Card College and the Magic of Paul Potassy, among other projects. And was for many years the "H" of "H & R Magic Books". But I haven't created or sold any vanishing cage ideas. There are several other Richard Hatches, including the winner of the first season of SURVIVOR who went to jail for not paying taxes on that million dollar windfall, and the actor who played Commander Apollo on Battleship Galactica years ago, but I'm not aware of any other Richard Hatches involved in magic.

I went to my inventory of stock, and found I made a very big mistake. I was entirely to credit Richard Hatch for this ingenuis method for the Vanishing Bird Cage.

Let me now state, that I purchased the method from the famous "Richard Buffum" of Balboa Island, California. I did think it odd that Richard Hatch was in Utah, as I knew it was from California. Richard Buffum came up with a product called "RELEASO" dated 1975.

Let me apologize to Richard Hatch, as he wrote to me and stated he has know knowledge of experience or producing anything on the Vanishing Bird cage.

I too, had a Richard Buffum "Releaso" gimmick! ( I think Charlie Miller gave it to me). It is a clever gimmick for releasing the cage from the 'vanishing mechanism'.

JNeal, will be making a fantastic parakeet for the Vanishing Bird Cage. Stay tuned, it is fantastic looking.

I am Sean Paul has found a source by now, but yes Bill, I think I am going to make a few of these. Rather than latex , which dries out when you least expect it to... this was made of soft foam, carved to a bird shape and covered in white silk. Then I painted it to resemble a parakeet... I think it turned out OK!

Click here to view attached image.

And the birds name is: Beauty

Hey John, thanks for the compliment.. and the bird thanks you as well! (now she will want raise!)

Hi JNeal:

Everything you do looks great! Is there anything you don't know how to do well?

Ron

Ron ! Thanks so much! You know what they say... If you do something long enough ( even if you do it wrong) ... It starts to look polished!
Seriously, I have always made most of my own props and I come from an artsy crafty background... So I like to challenge myself.

If you look closely, you may see that this parakeet is about 2/3 normal size. This does a couple of things: it makes sure the bird doesn't get caught in the bars when vanishing. It also looks more proportioned in the cage. I always felt a full size parakeet was too large for an Owen sized cage, and the Nielsen Latex canary is a bit too small. this seems about right. An unintended consequence is that (since we all 'know' the size of a parakeet) is that it makes the cage seem larger!
This little bird pleased me in turning out as I had hoped... Now to refine it a little more...

BTW - I see you are from Phoenix, I have such great memories of time spent there with Danny Dew, I hope to get back there someday !

Thanks again,!

Great Job on the bird JNeal!!

Dan, I have to say, that coming from you... The MASTER Of LATEX EGGS... it is a high compliment!

Hello Sean Paul,

that bird looks amazing!
possible to share where can I find a cage like yours?

i think I saw someone that developed a cage that was only attached to the reel when you need it... if my memory don't fail?
does anyone knows anything about it?

Thank you!

Lseeyou!

Actually the bird and the cage is mine. sorry for the confusion!

the cage was a custom creation, made for me by Jim Riser. He says he is out of the birdcage making business I think, but you might check his website and verify that!

I made the parakeet myself and I am going to make a few to sell, when time permits.

Thanks for the compliment!

J.Neal

Most rigid cages can be made to attach to cage quickly instead of being permanently attached. I have gimmicks that Horace Marshall made in the 1940's to do this. Bill McComb's cage was set up this way.
Richard

Richard Hughes, that is news to me, I owned an Owen's semi-rigid and have seen many of the old original ones, including James P. Riser's models, and none had the Billy McComb hook, all had the loop in the left corner. Even on the Billy McComb DVD from Encore Magic, none but Billy's had the flat hook.

I do love that flat hook idea over the standard squashed loop.

Tommy Wonder put a normal hook on his cage, and I could see the advantage of this over the squashed loop normally found.

I guess you have been withholding valuable information again, all these years.

If you have the gimmicks for the easy flat hook and ring attachment, I will take one. Send me a picture and price, so we can get this cage working.

Hi Richard,

I'm with Bill on this. I'd love to have,"..the gimmicks for the easy flat hook and ring attachment."

You know me by a different name.

Joel Pelletier
mejpelletier@verizon.net

The gimmicks were standard hardware that unfortunately is no long made. I will try to email you both a photo but I don't want to post it on an open forum. It was a squeeze clip that grasped the ring on the corner of the cage. Because of the way it was made it tighten around the loop as it went south. Billy's idea a was different.

Richard