I’ve probably asked about this before, long ago, but cannot now find any answers, so forgive any redundancy.

Is anyone familiar with a “new improved” (so-called) Okito box design, made not of brass but a shiny polished silvery metal (stainless steel? nickel or chrome plated?) and where the lid and body are almost symmetrically identical in size, shape and depth (so when put together, you cannot visually tell top from bottom)?

It’s featured in Walter Gibson’s “Complete Illustrated Book of Close-Up Magic” as well as in Blackstone’s “Secrets of Magic” (which I hear Gibson may have ghost-written?), which makes me wonder if Gibson might have had something to do with its development.

It obviously never caught on, since the magic community remains fond of brass boxes with a lid that clearly looks like a thin/shallow lid, distinguishable from the box’s much deeper body.

Still, curious about it. (I have one. Local magic shop was selling them in the 1970s.) Any historical info on this odd and evidently short-lived non-classical variant?

It’s described in Bobo’s coin magic book on page 217.

I had one of these in the 1970s, made by Rings-n-Things. They don't carry it any more.

Sounds like this one made by Enardoe:



https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/c......81943191

Bingo, I believe. Looks just like mine. I bought it from Magicland in Dallas when I was a kid, late 60s or early 70s.

Enardoe sounds about right for what they’d likely carried at the time.

It feels kinda chunky, as if the base is weighted to make it turn over automatically upon dropping it from hand to hand. Works well in that regard.

I keep mine stocked with English pennies, for a better color contrast.

I have a couple of these in the silver color and one that holds dollar coins in brass. This type of box has a couple of properties that regular boxes don’t have.

Such as not being able to tell top from bottom? (Interchangeable?)

Of course, that’s the obvious one. If you spend time experimenting with the box, others become apparent.

The name is actually "The Classic Style" Okito Box. Or at least that is how Jim Zee and others referred to the design when they made them.

A very nice box. We may also mention the less known (and not as elegant) Kortas Okito Box, that -really- for a few bucks can be mat gold plated by a craftsman specialized in the restoration of painting frames. 40 years ago I did this with a copper leaf on a silver French Hercules 10 francs coin to have a copper/silver coin. It aged perfectly and the copper side became dark brown and didn't scratch.
As I suggested somewhere else in our Café, let's think "out of the box", especially when the box is as perfectly designed as the Enardoe one which deserve some smart engraving or cameo covered lid to look like a pill box (coin boxes do not exist in real life) which could contain two or three tic tac to be emptied convincingly.

Tango makes a Kartis coin box that is similar.

GO HERE:
https://www.bigguysmagic.com/kartis-okit......o-trick/