Potter & Potter Auctions, Chicago, Illinois
Photos courtesy Potter & Potter Auctions
Many a seasoned collector or reader knows that sometimes life brings a full-circle event. For those who have not had the experience, that’s when an earlier happening or impression loops and relates to or ties to a later experience or occurrence.
Always vocal in his admiration for famed sleight-of-hand master Max Malini (born Max Katz Breit, 1873-1942), Ricky Jay devoted an entire chapter to Malini in his landmark book Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers. Estimated at $300/600, the 10" x 8" full-length portrait of Malini sold for $1140. “He is so associated with Ricky, and material related to him is hard to come by,” stated Gabe Fajuri.
As an example, consider the fact that at age 13 or 14, as he recalls, Chicago-area teen Gabe Fajuri, mesmerized by magic and sleight of hand, discovered entertainer, actor, magician, and master of card tricks extraordinaire Ricky Jay (1946-2018), born Richard Jay Potash in Brooklyn. The encounter came via Jay’s 1986 book Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers. Right there, you have an idea of how Jay hooked audiences through his uncanny radar for the odd and arcane. At age 15, Fajuri was in the audience and managed to score an autograph when Jay performed his stage act at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre.
Fast forward to 2023, when the adult Gabe Fajuri, cofounder, president, and auctioneer at the successful auction house Potter & Potter Auctions in Chicago, was entrusted to sell Jay’s massive collection of personally selected memorabilia, gathered during the entertainer’s many performing gigs worldwide. The material was in the right hands, as Potter & Potter specializes in vintage advertising, playing cards, vintage toys, and gambling memorabilia, plus antiques and collections related to all kinds of magicana.
Accumulated during a lifetime, the sheer mass of Jay’s collection involved three sales. The first, in February 2023, had a 99% sell-through rate for the 369 lots and reached $980,000. The second sale of 323 lots in October 2023 had a 98% sell-through rate and realized close to $518,000. The third and final sale, held this year on August 17, had 515 lots and had, according to Fajuri, a 99% sell-through rate, ending with a “better than expected” result totaling $454,000.
“The sale went extremely well,” said Fajuri in a telephone interview about the final sale. He added that the first sale contained “more pictorials and visuals” that were catnip to collectors. The final sale, he said, “was more hardcore in terms of erudite.”
You have to love a catalog that titles a lot “Modesty Did Not Suit Him”! The reference is to magician Chung Ling Soo, portrayed descending from storm clouds while perched on the hand of God in this iconic half-sheet color poster, 21¼" x 31". The subtitle, “A Gift from the Gods to Mortals on Earth,” continues the paean. Soo was born William Ellsworth Robinson (1861-1918). The catalog notes that his successful career as a “Chinese” magician was cut short when his bullet-catching feat misfired—a professional hazard. Estimated at $10,000/15,000, the poster was the sale’s top lot at $14,400.
To wit, consider the top lot, a framed circa 1912 half-sheet color poster measuring 21¼" x 31" ballyhooing “Chinese” magician Chung Ling Soo, born William Ellsworth Robinson (1861-1918) in New York. Estimated at $10,000/15,000, the iconic and scarce stone lithograph poster sold for $14,400 (including buyer’s premium) to an Asian American buyer, a professional magician who collects depictions of Asians.
Erudite was an 1875 broadside measuring 25" x 8¾" promoting Prof. Hermann, “King of Prestidigitateurs,” along with Professor Tobin, touted as “The Great Illusionist,” performing “16 Scenes of Wonder,” including the debut of an illusion later called palingenesia, in which, according to the sale catalog, a man’s head, arm, and leg were visibly severed from his body in full view of the audience. Estimated at $2000/4000, the lot brought $2640.
Billed as “Spirit Photograph of Ricky Jay and a Circassian Spirit,” the opening lot was estimated at $2000/4000 and soared to $9000. Undated but signed by the photographer, Stephen Berkman, the 5½" x 4" spirit photo is one of only four printed. Circassian refers to a group of people from the northwestern Caucasus, which no longer exists as a sovereign country. The ethnic religion of the Circassians was paganism. As used in magicana, Circassian conjures an aura of mystery and spiritualism.
The auction opened on a more earthly level, with a 5½" x 4" sepia-toned albumen “Spirit Photograph of Ricky Jay and a Circassian Spirit” showing Jay with the ghostly image of a shrouded female figure. Undated but signed by photographer, Stephen Berkman, the image seen in a large wood frame was estimated at $2000/4000 and soared to $9000.
Fajuri shared that Jay’s widow was clear before the sale that the dispersal of the collection was not to be about selling off relics from his career. His personal selections were not to be flogged as talismans nor prized as sensational bits and pieces linked to the celebrated entertainer. That’s a celebrity auction, and what some call a circus.
Emphasis was to be on content, connecting how the entirety related to Ricky Jay’s person and career. Because Jay had relatively few tight but precious personal connections throughout his career, serious collectors jumped at the chance to view what he selected. Most had no idea that he collected, let alone that, driven by a wide variety of interests, Jay had amassed such a wide spectrum of items.
In a rare departure from the world of tricks, oddities, and curiosities, one lot consisted of a small circa 1810s chest covered with leather, brass studs, and animal fur. Estimated at $500/700, it soared to $6000. Why? The answer was inside. Lined with broadside scraps for the Canadian ventriloquist and magician John Rannie, the box is a link to early ventriloquism and to a significant individual in its history. Plus, there is the Canadian connection.
“There are very few items linked to ventriloquism,” said Fajuri, which may explain why 33 bids were recorded for the lot.
Some winners could be linked to simple cause and effect. Ricky Jay was known for his public homage to celebrated Polish/American sleight-of-hand-artist Max Malini (1873-1942), and his admiration may have propelled the $1140 result (against a $300/600 estimate) for a circa 1920 full-length photograph in a matte finish of the master, born Max Katz Breit. A group of six items of Malini memorabilia, 1930s-40s, including candid photos of him with a fellow magician, was estimated at $500/1000 and reached $9600.
In the second sale of Jay’s collection in October 2023, a collection of written materials by illusionist and stage magician Karl Germain (1878-1959), born Charles Mattmueller, was the top lot at $66,000. In this sale, an archive of Germain manuscripts and short stories intended for submission to magazines and other publications was estimated at $2000/4000 and soared to $9000.
When asked about the high result for items in a genre not widely associated with Germain, Fajuri surmised that perhaps bidders were energized by how good the writing was. Loaded with handwritten notations and in one example a sketch, the compilation sheds light on the magician’s post-stage career. Every personality characteristic evinced in the earlier sale appears again in this very different offering. The lawyer/entertainer/magician was so organized and precise that even his rejection letters made the lot.
For more information, call Potter & Potter Auctions at (773) 472-1442 or check the website (www.potterauctions.com).
The proof copy of The Magic Magic Book, published by the Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1994 as two volumes, fetched $6600 (est. $1000/2000). Written by Ricky Jay, volume I is an illustrated history of the “blow” book (where images change as pages are flipped through). Volume II is an actual blow book with images from several artists, including William Wegman. The first volume is signed or initialed by the artists. Both proof volumes were presented to Jay before publication.
Estimated at $600/1200, this 1853 one-color playbill, 19¼" x 9½", for a Philadelphia show featuring several Chinese performers sold for $1140. The billing, touting a “Double-Jointed Chinese Dwarf” and a “Miraculous Decapitation” plus “Impalement,” promised a lively event.
Dated 1796, the rare and early letterpress agreement bearing the name of Gardiner Baker, owner of the Tammany Museum in New York City, allows admittance of a family into the museum. Described in the catalog as the first “dime museum,” the Tammany Museum involved a collection of Americana and, with its displays of curiosities, was a precursor to the American sideshow. Estimated at $2000/4000, the document sold for $3120.
The circa 1913 full-color stone lithograph poster highlights Esther Louise Georgette Deer, a.k.a. Princess White Deer, as a Mohawk woman wearing a war bonnet and surrounded by symbols of Native American culture. The linen-backed 37" x 27¼" poster sold for $6000 (est. $5000/10,000). The catalog notes that at about the time of World War I, she stopped touring and became a Ziegfeld girl and a vocal supporter of Native American voting rights.
Squeamish readers might want to skip this one, where a group of seven pamphlets about freaks estimated at $500/700 sold for $1680. The leaflets advertise the “Chinese Monster” (a hand-built attraction), “Biographical Sketch of Serpentina The Serpent Lady” (no bones below her shoulders), “History of the Legless Acrobat,” and more.
Ricky Jay’s tastes for learning had no boundaries, as seen with this late 19th-century Japanese woodblock broadside featuring a variety of performers. Ten panels on the printed 14¼" x 18¾" paper advertise varied skills, including balance and equestrian stunts. Estimated at $500/700, the lot brought $2400.
Estimated at $5000/10,000, the 30¾" x 40" horizontal one-sheet 1897 stone lithograph promoting “All White Performers” sold for $3120. Considering the active market for black memorabilia, we wondered why the result was so low. After all, all performers in the act were promoted as “spinning no less than 16 tambourines at one time”! It may be that no matter how enticing the act was, bidders did not respond to white performers in blackface.
A Parisian magic set from the 1880s with its original manual and publications on conjuring brought $1920 (est. $400/800). Ten bids hammered home the box, with contents that included a set of miniature tin cups, a nail through the finger trick with its original box labeled “Le Clou du Diable” (the devil’s nail), a forcing pack, and two die through the hat tricks, plus a bill in lemon knife, a quantity of wire puzzles, and more. The catalog description notes that the set is “Likely a marriage of parts.”
The circa 1810s document box covered with leather, brass studs, and animal fur, 7½" x 12½" x 7¼", lined with scraps of broadsides relating to the Canadian ventriloquist and magician John Rannie, was estimated at $500/700 and zoomed to $6000. Details are in the article.
Originally published in the December 2024 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2024 Maine Antique Digest
