Shoot!! Pete, the one I sent you some years ago had 38 cal tips on it. We called it the "bullet wand" and I still make em. I picked the idea up from Willard's actual wand when I was restoring some of the props from The Egyptian Hall Museum in Nashville at Dave Price Sr.'s request. That's where those wands in the magazine article came from and I got permission from Mr. Price to reproduce six of those wands before he passed away and his son sold the collection. In fact, when I was making those retiring president's wands for the I.B.M., I got the idea for the central ferrule from Okito's wand. The head guys in the I.B.M. had no idea what it meant.
-=tabman
http://tabmantables.com

Thank you, Lonnie!

I make these myself. I have a company that cuts the brass rod to length for me. Then I polish it in my lathe, and apply the heat shrink tubing. It is somewhat labor intensive, but the results speak for themselves.

I have an entire notebook devoted to magic wand lore. Here's some of my favorites:

According to Illustrated Magic, "the magic wand is the first piece of magic apparatus that a magician collects."

Modern Magic states that a magicians wand should be 12 to 15 inches in length and can be made of any material and decorated in any manner fancied.

From Secrets of Conjuring and Magic we learn that the wand is a small ebony rod with ivory tips 13 to 14 inches in length and should be elegant.

While The Amateur Magician's Handbook boldly states, "the wand is the badge of the professed magician."

Floyd Thayer started his Thayer Magic Co. making wands and advertised first in Mahatama as The Wand of The West. Ellis Stanyon is reported to have been his first customer. The Thayers were hard working, ethical people whom I admire greatly so I was especially proud when Jim Sisti compared my work to that of Floyd Thayer in an early issue of The Magic Menu, in fact even calling me the modern day Floyd Thayer.

Floyd had a humble start. He and his family would ride horseback out into the desert, camp out and collect manzanita limbs to turn wands from. Can you imagine? We were really poor and that story sent me up the hill into the woods and I started collecting walnut and cherry wood. I would dig nice pieces of ash, hickory and cherry out of the wood pile and chuck them into the lathe and start spinning. I took Floyd's life and made him into my own grandpaw!! It's worked out pretty good.
-=tabman
http://tabmantables.com

For a more mythological/religious/historical look at the wand in all cultures, try reading this book (old and hard to find but worth the effort; Kessinger Publishing may have recently reprinted it): It is titled "The Story of the Stick in All Ages and Lands" and was translated into English by Antony Real and was published in New York by J. W. Bouton in 1875. It consists of 250 plus pages of text on, as the subtitle says, "A Philosophical History and Lively Chronicle of the Stick as the Friend and the Foe of Man. Its Uses and Abuses. As Sceptre and as Crook. As the Warrior's Weapon and the Wizard's Wand. As Stay, as Stimulus, and as Scourge."

Also, if you wand to see a picture of a nifty collection of wands (each wand labeled with the magician’s name no less), look in Epes Sargent's monograph titled "Saram R. Ellison." Alas, it’s also very tough to find (published in a very limited edition in 1915), but what wands Ellison had! Wands owned by various Hermanns, Thurston, Kellar, Prof. Hoffmann, McAllister, Anderson, Blitz, Soo, Frikell, Maskelyne, Downs and Stanyon, to name a few. Interesting to note that the great majority of wands used by Anderson and his mid to late 19th century contemporaries did NOT have white tips.

There was another monograph published within the last decade on the magic wand (not Rev. Rauscher’s), but I can’t think of it at the moment.

Finally, for those of you wand lovers who may get excited at seeing George Johnson’s “The History of the Magic Wand” on a dealer’s list, this wee pamphlet concerned the history of his magazine, The Magic Wand, not magic wands.

Happy reading!

Yep, Tabber... I forgot (I apologize) to mention that it was indeed YOU that made my "L.A. Street Wand" with the brass slugs on the ends.

Still have it, still use it.

I also use an antique Opium Pipe, a piece of card tube from a coat hangar ala Charlie Miller, a bamboo stick made for me by Emile Clifton, and now a KILLER wand made by Joe Porper that has a SECRET WEAPON with it that will sooooon be on the market.

OK, the wand Vernon fooled Slydini with. Porper made this and may make a few more... it actually enabled Vernon to do the CARD FOUNTAIN sans thread. A mind blower.

That's an interesting idea Pete and indeed a magic wand to many. Actually I bought one made of ivory in Saigon in 1970 or 71. That's a great idea about using it as a "wand" for certain effects. Maybe I still have my pipe somewhere.

All the best,

-=tabman

Hmmm, I wonder what the half life of opium is ...

Does anyone(especailly Bill) know where I can buy one of his wands?

-Jreuah

Has anyone ever proposed a more "Freudian" origin for the magic wand? I mean, a college freshman can point (it is impolite to point, really...even more so to point and laugh...) to myriad examples of real and artificial phalluses (phallusi?) as symbols of political power and military might. It's really not that much of a mental leap to think, at the very least in patriarchal societies, that an artificial phallus can represent spiritual authority and magical prowess, as well.

And if this is the case, I truly believe we're going to have to re-think the whole "broken wand" ceremony...

"Sometimes a magic wand is just a magic wand..."

Robb Randall

robb, there was an extended discussion on the old (pre internet) MAGIC! BBS out of Areleta, CA. We have the archive of most of it (some was lost in that big quake in 91 or 92) at http://questx.com/magic! go to the archives and look around. the obvious phalic symbolism among other information and conjecture was explored by a panel that consisted of max maven, david x, richard hart and a number of other magicians practicing magic at the time.

-=tabman

Now if you want a real mixed message, have a look at a lipstick thingie. Or even a chapstick. Sheesh.

I have just published a new book "The Magician's Wand: A History of Mystical Rods of Power." Details at http://members.aol.com/Lantiere/owm.htm. Thanks, Joe Lantiere

Go to http://www.adessoverlag.com

Also, Hocus Pocus stocks them.

Regarding Joe Lantiere's book -- there is a review of it in the "Good, Bad and the Garbage" section of the forum. It is an excellent book.

Hi Joe, Welcome!! Is this a new edition of your book??? I still have the original edition from some years ago???

-=tabman

Before the late David Price passed away, I had the opportunity to visit his collection. He had one of Robert-Houdin's wands. It was much longer than described in Secrets of Conjuring and Magic, about 17 or 18 inches, dark brown wood, tapered from center to ends. The ends were black.

Here is a photo I took of David Price's wand collection back in the mid 80's. It was very impressive. Charlie Buckner is standing near the display.

I helped restore a number of the items in Price's Ellison Collection and have permission to reproduce a number of those wands in the photo. Mr. Price and I were close. He was a fine gentleman and is very much missed. Now, Bill, I'm dissapointed that you visited Nashville and didn't get in touch with the tabman!!!!

-=tabman

Hoy Chihuaua!! That is one cool-looking cabinet!! And the BEST part is, I'll bet there's a story behind every single wand in it!

That cabinet is actually one "page" of a giant book.

You're right, Michael. A giant book. Mr. Price was always so gracious (Mrs. Price too) to magicians who wanted to visit the collection. Just super people. The prototype of the IBM Award Wand that I made a number of for the IBM was in the big case in the middle of the room on the west side of the case. His son sold the collection shortly after his dad died and I understand has little contact with magicians. The price was in excess of a million according to some local magicians who attended the sale.
-=tabman