[Ads-l] Magic Collectors Expo

[Bill Mullins]

 I just came home from a trip to Newark and Manhattan, where I attended the Magic Collectors Expo

https://magiccollectorexpo.com/

A couple of hundred of us, interested in the history of magic and who collect magic memorabilia/ephemera, spent a few days socializing and building our collections.  Magic books (collections of tricks and explanations, biographies, magic-related fiction, etc.) are a key part of just about every magic collector's interests, and why I hope this post is on-topic for the list. (I bought four books, and identified a few more that I'll buy mail-order because they wouldn't fit in my luggage on the way home).

There were talks on magic shops of NYC, a history of Tannen's magic shop, Adelaide Herrmann, how Laurel & Hardy got together with Dante the Great to make "A Haunting We Will Go", magicians on Broadway, how magicians have treated their animal assistants (not very well), a panel discussion of Kreskin from some of his friends, and more.  There was a trip to the NYPL of Performing Arts at the Lincoln Center where curator Annemarie van Roessel gave a talk on their current exhibition "Mystery and Wonder: A Legacy of Golden Age Magicians in New York City"

https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/mystery-and-wonder-legacy-golden-age-magicians-new-york-city and then she opened up some of the archives for us that weren't on public display.  (If it is convenient for any chums, I'd highly recommend you see it if only for the posters).

After I left, Magaret Steele (who gave the talk on Herrmann) did a walking tour of sites in Manhattan that were important to her performances and her life:
https://theaddiechronicals.wordpress.com/2026/05/13/adelaide-herrmanns-new-york-city-walking-tour/

A number of folks stuck around for the Automatacon
https://www.automatacon.org/ , and while I would have loved to have seen John Gaughan's talk, that event wasn't quite so much my own jam.




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