For feather lovers everywhere.

This site is not about feathers, though it might look like it.

And I am in no way a feather fetishist, but what fun it sounds. I just like beautiful images and making them. So nothing to read into the the feather header of these pages except perhaps my light touch in the imagination department.

Imagination is something great isn't it? We all have them, imaginations, but it's how we use them. I choose to use mine lightly and with the magic touch. Even dreadfully serious things can be fun and funny in the end. Did you hear about the funny air crash? Ask me later.

So then, without any real intent, a page about feathers seems like a peculiar but okay idea.

This here Jim's Gimmick was advertised in a British magazine for magicians when The Beatles were first a wow. The advertisement started something really strange. The man who wrote it ran a shop for professional magicians in a very seedy part of Soho in London. This man, Harry Stanley, was worried that some of his goods were too expensive since you did not appear to get a lot for your money. So he, or his genius associate Ken Brooke, came up with the idea of not saying what it was you were buying. An astounding technique since some of their things cost far more than the basic wage in Britain. At the time the median salary was an amazingly low twelve pounds.

In ye olde English they have a name for this sales technique. They call it buying a pig in a poke. But this Jim's Gimmick example began the idea of keeping things secret from your customers. I'm sure you know how thrilling a lucky dip can be. We'll that's the same sort of thrill as this was. Professional magicians all over the world bought things from these people just for the thrill of it. Hope is such a wonderful thing.

Here's the advertisement. See what you make of it. You'll be intrigued that I did not buy it, but the thing drove me mad for a very long time. I was a kid and pocket money is pocket money after all. Finally I knew the way it operated and I have to say, I was not disappointed. But since magicians keep secrets, you will just have to work it out for yourself. Yes, curse me why don't you. But at least I'm giving you a chance by showing you a cartoon of it. Something I didn't have back then.

In case you haven't been delving into trivia books recently, it might be a good thing to announce that magicians created the word gimmick. It probably came from a gimcrack; a useless trifle. Then on it went to mean a gee gaw used by magical deceptionists in a way that would not be noticed by suckers. Many of these early performers verged from the magic path into illicit gimmick-laden gambling for reasons of quick earners. How especially gimmicky of them. 

Apparently the Jim's Gimmick folderol was not a hot seller. A few years later the initial marketer of it, Harry Stanley, published a drawing of the natty appliance in his house organ. I love the way they used to call their magazines 'house organs'. You don't have to ask why I love that ... do you?

The drawing in the 'organ' of Jim's Gimmick you see below posed more questions than it revealed. I think Harry was just being bitchy publishing all of Ken Brooke's material since they'd split and were running competing businesses within five minutes walk of each other after you weaved deftly through the thronging 'ladies of the night'. What loopy fun.

And, what did you get for your enormous twelve shillings and sixpence? That's £11 now. You got one hilarious feather and this thing [below]. By the way in the realm of truth in advertising, the Harry Stanley advertisement would not win any prizes. A bit of sleuthing by me revealed that the feather used was one of those microscopic fluffy feathers you get from the undercarriage of chickens. You'd need to supply your audience with binoculars before they could see the feather being funny.

Mr. Stiffneck the Magician in the picture must have bought the jumbo model. And just look how it sparkles. Are we sure the device is not a sinister abdominal truss?

Truss me.

Ian Buckland.

A Thrilling News Flash. 

Please shield those eyes.

Miracles do happen. I managed to source a boxed and unused Jim's Gimmick from Colin John an English dispenser of peachy curios. It came complete with a stick of unchewed 1964 Arrowmint gum, a washer and one of the buff-coloured pay envelopes beloved of the magic equipment dealer Harry Stanley. Almost everything he made came with one or more of these envelopes. 

These cheap accessories are much loved by collectors because they are arcane and hardly ever survive as actual works of art.* 

*It is hard to image a more minor art form than this one.

See the sturdy, purposeful cardboard box. Nice to see that in those prehistoric days two decades before the internet that people like Harry knew when to put an apostrophe before an 's.

And it's just great to have the name of the apparatus hand-written on the box by Harry himself. Or by his creative genius Ken Brooke. Though it could have been written by their long-suffering secretary Mavis Murrell.

These, and the amazing wad of manuscript pages, are a real find. Often these boxes of nothing much at all have led to sensational careers in show business, television and the great stages of the world. Just look at me  ... but only if you're wearing protective goggles.

The thrill of thrills, I engraved a photo onto the CMOS sensor of my camera just for you ❤️. Here then is one of the most unusual appliances known to man. 

Do not faint.

Concluding amazement: 

I intend to manufacture a work-out variation called Jim’s Gym-mick for the discerning athletic conjurer.

Panic is unnecessary.

Thank you.