Submitted by James Alan on
The Collection of William H. McIlhany at Auction
Sunday, November 12, 2017 at 1:00 PM Eastern (10:00 AM Pacific)
Presented by Auction Results in conjunction with Owen Magic Supreme.
From MagicAuctioneer.com:
Bill McIlhany was the consummate collector of all things magical and was considered one of the most knowledgeable magic collectors in the world. His mind-boggling collection ranged from rare pieces of early 19th- and 20th-century masters to spectacular quality modern-day apparatus.
His fine collection, which includes apparatus, automatons, lithographs, books, periodicals, catalogs so much more will be offered at auction.
Auction #2 will be a 1 day event and will include treasures from: Conradi, Bland, Thayer, Willmann, Klingl, Okito, Bartl, Hamley, Owen Magic Supreme, Carl Williams, Grant, Ruediger Deutsch, Eric Lewis, Anverdi, Abbott, Himber and so much more.
One of the prized items is the Saturday session is Mechanical Hofzinser 52 Card (above), McIlhany had this custom made after seeing Ken Klosterman Hofzinser Card Rise that Charles Kalish had copied from the original in the Library of Congress. This remarkable piece of apparatus was apparently constructed for Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser (1806-1875) by his Viennese mechanic, Kurz, in the early 1840's. This automaton would allow for Hofzinser to have any card out of a 32 card pack rise from the box when called for by the audience. Joe Young from Wyoming, OH was a retired GE aerospace prototype builder who re-built parts of Ken’s box to make it work properly. When Ken introduced McIlhany, Young showed them his inspiration of making the illusion better, by building a box to hold all 52 cards in a pack, not just the 32 cards from the original design. In addition to the electronic version that Young made, he also designed this completely mechanical version. Joe claimed that he spent over 500 hours in creating this masterpiece. Bill said that this was built like a tank but ran like a fine swiss watch.
The Auction catalog is now available for download at MagicAuctioneer.com and advance online bids are now being accepted at LiveAuctioneer.com.
Good luck to all those bidding.
