The Oldest Magic Store In America

We came across an old article in The Sphinx, Vol. 40, Issue 7, page 12 concerning the oldest magic store. We're reproducing it below.

Before there were any magic shops in America a few toy and game stores sold sets of tricks which were manufactured abroad. Most of these sets were put up in attractively decorated boxes. The tricks in the main were very similar in the various sets.

The first magic shop in America seems to have been in New York and run by M. Hartz. This shop according to all the Information which can be gathered was rather short lived and was in no way connected with the later shop off Hartz and Levy although it was the same Hartz in each instance. H . L . Judd, it is said, opened his shop prior to that of Hartz and Levy but after "The Hartz Magical Repository" had closed. Incidentally most of the old shops had imposing names—Repository, Emporium, or Palace, no matter how unpretentious or tiny the premises were. For instance, the shop of D. Malini located on Grand Street, near Havemeyer Street in Brooklyn was advertised in most glowing terms, but actually was housed in the most minute quarters. The door of the store was wider than the show window and the whole building was so narrow that a step ladder was employed to reach the upper floor. However, his place was neat and he had some excellent apparatus for sale.

Another of the very old dealers whose name is all but forgotten today was a Mr. Bates. He had a tiny shop too but it was quite big enough for him to build a new show for Harry Kellar not very long after Kellar had returned from his tour of the world. A good many of these early dealers were themselves exceptionally fine mechanics and cabinet makers. It was their job to make the apparatus according to the idea of the magician placing the order, except in certain standard pieces which were copies of equipment imported from Europe. Some of the dealers would make only the special jobs and would import the regulation apparatus. In short most of the old time dealers were custom shops fulfilling the ideas supplied by their customers. It was a much later date when the dealers themselves began originating effects and equipment, or buying ideas which they could manufacture.

The first American dealers outside of New York were C. Milton Chase, in Boston; Tom Yost, in Philadelphia, and Charles L. Burlingame, in Chicago. Robert Nickel was Yost's original partner in his shop. Burlingame used to engage for his work an exceptionally fine wood worker named Gus Roterberg and he encouraged Roterberg to go into the magic business. Roterberg built up a wonderful business in Chicago and a following all over the world. As big as Burlingame's business was, and as fine equipment as he sold, it is strange to find his fame today rests more upon the books which he wrote than upon his magic business.