The New Demon Telegraph

Issue No. 1 - August, 2024

I always think that the trick chooses the magician rather than the magician choosing the trick. One sees a trick performed, or reads about an effect, and some force beyond our ken takes over and draws us to spend the time and money to make it our own. 

Over the last 125 years the House of Davenport has been selling, or offering, magic tricks from the fertile minds of members of the family and other magicians such as Robert Harbin, Will Goldston, Louis Nikola, Nesbitt, Servais Le Roy, Norman Hunter, Amac and Oswald Williams. Magic has a habit of moulding itself to the social fabric of the day; a tea caddy of 1900 becomes the receptacle for a die and is now the Sliding Die Box, a frying pan with a lid loses its handle and becomes known as a Dove Pan. Over generations, magicians lose touch with the origins of these classics of magic and altogether with other effects which have been lost to the annals of time.

Gradually, magic tricks, books and general ephemera from these wonderfully artistic minds have been bought and sold in our shops or sent around the world by post. For a multitude of reasons, some items have remained on the shelf; changing fads and culture, diversification of methods, faulty items returned and simply put aside "to sort out sometime". Some items are part made and then paused as parts become unavailable, reasons too numerable to mention. 

A philosophy of not discarding has prevailed for a hundred years amongst the Davenports, resulting in these treasures of the past forming a unique magical trove of wonder held in suspended animation.

I see that these magical gems, if sorted, repaired and completed if necessary and offered will have the opportunity to choose a magical enthusiast who will perform, learn from or simply embrace into their conjuring collection.

Roy Davenport