Ropes, Ribbons, Strings & Reels

A complete routine that will captivate your audience from start to finish. If you never buy another rope effect, experts agree, this is the one to use. To make it easier to learn this beautiful routine, Nelson Hahne, one of the best magic illustrators in the business, was commissioned to provide the 53 pen-and-ink drawings that accompany the text.

Here's a partial listing of what's included:

• Hull's Famous Vanishing Knot
• The Disappearing Square Knot
• The Hindu Knot
• The Magic Shoelaces
• The Cut and Restored Rope
• The Stretching Rope--And A Surprise Ending
• Hull's Rope Through Neck
• Three...

You can carry a piece (or more) of rope in your pocket, and use it to perform some amazing magic for an intimate audience of a couple of spectators, or on a stage for an audience of hundreds. There are hundreds of tricks you can perform with a piece of rope. The most famous of these is the Cut & Restored Rope trick, where a piece of rope is cut into two or more pieces, and magically restored.

But there are many others, where knots magically appear or vanish from a length of rope, rings or handkerchiefs penetrate through a length of rope, or a rope penetrates through your knee or neck. There...

This is the first of three parts. It is by far the most thorough compilation of rope tricks ever created. From the preface by Percy Abbott:

This is the second of three parts. From the preface:

• Publisher's Foreward
• We Dedicate
• The Fable Of The Hindu Rope Trick
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter One: Knots
  • One Hand And...

This is the third of three parts. This final part is organized by publication or creator.

• Acknowledgments
• Chapter One: The Abbott Magic Company Section
  • Krazy Kube (Roy Shrimplin)
  • Arturo's Check-R-X
  • Endless Neck Rope
  • Octagoon (Lester Lake)
  • Rope Thru Body (Karson)
  • Embarrassing Rope
  • All Fair Rope Trick
  • Abbott's Wrist Tie Supreme
  • Abbott's Rod Tie
  • Club Performer's Spook Act
• Chapter Two: The Eddie Joseph Section
  • Divorce In Zuzuland
  • The Thumb Tie
  • The Two-Way Cut
  • "Unaccommodating Rope"
  • The Tieless Tie
  • "Secret Ingress"
  • "Space Venture"
  • "Trapped In Space"
  • "Magilocks"
• Chapter Three:...

This is an ebook that will not only amuse you, but it will show you how you can amuse your friends. In dozens of ways, it describes how paper and string can be put to interesting and sometimes astonishing use. If you start at page 1 and work your way to the end of the ebook, you will be rewarded by many hours of enjoyable recreation: but you will not be entirely satisfied until you have tried some of the tricks and puzzles on your friends.

• a Penny Puzzle
• The Paper Ladder
• The Palm Tree
• A Point About A Circle
• The New Square
• The Five Squares Again
• Quartering Three-Quarters
• Splitting Up...

All audiences know of Houdini and his incredible escapes. Here's an effect where you demonstrate his incredible feats in a most magical way!

Effect: Houdini escapes three times from being tied up. The last escape is under the fairest and most impossible conditions -- in the spectator's hand. You start and end clean. All is examinable before and after. A rope, tied around your fingers and hand, melts through twice; and then Houdini escapes a third and final time slowly, off the spectators hand under challenging conditions.

1st edition 2013, 27 pages + 9 min video

"Ben's Band Book is some of the best band and card magic ever. Some could be plucked out and used as single trick downloads. As with every Ben Harris ebook of wonder, it's beautifully laid out with lots of photos to help you along. Highly recommended. ***** 5/5 Stars" - Jamie Daws

"WTF, some witchcraft?? I can't figure it out. Amazing!!" - Mario Tarasini

• No gimmick used
• Do with any size (within reason) rubber band
• Watch your angles. This looks great from certain directions, but you are exposed from others. Certainly not a trick to be done surrounded.

1st...

This is Barry Ray's working routine. It is a three phase routine, with three addional moves, and it can be perform surrounded.

1st edition 2009; 27 pages; 42 photos.

Originally this book was titled Tricks with Hair. Twenty-Six outstanding tricks, tips, and secrets that enable you to perform some of the most baffling effects in all of magic!

What is invisible thread? New chapters only in this edition reveal the secrets of invisible thread and even how to make your own. These secrets have been jealously guarded by top close-up and stage performers, as well as magic dealers ... until now.

Today, U. F. Grant is recognized as one of the most phenomenal creators of baffling mysteries. His original manuscript has been updated and packed with new information...

A parlor sized ring with a stage sized routine.

This is a compact ring and string routine which uses some of the most visual moves one can do with these props. For many years I have performed a very similar routine. I used a red cotton ribbon instead of the standard white rope, because a ribbon lies flat on the ring and is wider than a rope allowing for some sequences a stronger illusion.

1st edition 2003; 10 pages.

Talk about packing small and playing big, this is the ultimate. You can carry a piece of rope with you and fill a stage if you wish. But this is not just for stage, it plays equally as well for parlor or club shows. This is the famous trick performed by both father and son, Blackstone's Comedy Rope Trick that always brought the house down with laughter.

You will learn every beautiful move and every comedy touch of the master magicians and every innermost thought that made the trick famous. You get detailed illustrated directions enabling you to perform this in your show. Your hands have been...

In this download, Doan teaches you three very magical, impromptu effects using just one rubber band.

BUDDHISM - Wrap the band around your fingers and make it jump through them.

POILOCK - The band on your index finger jumps to your middle finger instantly.

SINGL8 - Visually form an 8 with the band within a second.

All of these amazing effects are taught in slow motion and are easy to understand. Download the video and start learning now.

1st edition 2020, length 6:10

A novel and powerful ring on rope effect. The cord is woven about your spread fingers to form an impassible gate with a loop beneath. The ends are far from the metal ring, yet it visually jumps onto the loop.

No gimmick or unnatural moves. Opportunities for audience participation and you can be completely surrounded.

Idea for when a ring & rope effect is added to a linking rings routine, cut and restored rope or stand-alone for walk-around or table hopping as a prelude to a later routine.

However, this effect is so impossible in comparison with many simpler ring on rope effects to...

This is a wonderful classic cut and restored rope routine performed to a lovely script. The rope is cut and restored twice and in the end the rope vanishes only leaving a short piece behind in the spectator's hand.

runtime: 10min 22s

A paper butterfly flutters above your hands, flies around and even lands on a rose.

You will learn the secrets of Peki's invisible thread that makes it much more invisible than other threads even in close up instances where viewers are only a few inches away from the action.

Professionally dubbed into English from German.

runtime: 10min 19s

You get two floating object performances by Peki. One is the fun "Drunken Bottle Cork" and the other a poetic "Heart in Love" routine.

Please remember that you will only get the performances and no explanations. But if you know Peki's thread and method these two routines serve as further examples of what is possible with such a wonderful close-up floatation method. Please refer to Dance of the Butterfly, The Dancing Handkerchief or The Fairytale of the Silver Pearl for details on the thread and the method used by Peki.

runtime: 2min 31s

The original work on elastic thread magic, first published in 1989. All the pro tips you need, along with six full routines to start performing right now.

You see so much information published about "Elastic Thread Magic" today—you'd think it all "brand new". Alas, such is not the case. If you look hard, you'll see much of today's gold is really the silver of yesteryear.

This manuscript contains original routines as well as important information that appeared in the original 1989 manuscript. Even the illustrations are the originals. Enjoy and impress...

Subjects covered:

• flashing ...

This is the famous perfected rope routine - three consecutive cuts and restorations - devised by that West Coast Magician, Eric Lewis. Mr. Lewis was one of the busiest magicians in England before he moved to Los Angeles. There he has been very busy editing the Bamberg books of magic, working at the Magic Castle and doing lectures. The Triple Cut Rope Routine uses a number of original and unorthodox moves that end up in a very smooth and convincing trick. A big hit in the Magic Castle and on lecture tours, where Eric has shown it to the most sophisticated and best informed of the magicians. ...

The magician pulls out a six foot piece of rope, pulls it up in the center and clearly cuts the rope into two pieces. He then picks up the bottom ends, brings them to the top and the rope fully restores. He then grabs the rope by the middle and cuts it in half again. He trims off the pieces at the top and the rope restores a second time.

He folds the rope into thirds and cuts it at the top and bottom. He clearly counts off the three separate and equal pieces from one hand to the other. With all the pieces held in one hand he brings the bottom ends to the top and individually pulls out three...

A collection of string games, useful braiding weaving, knot work and magic with string and rope.

From the introduction:

Some of the finest rope magic from Lewis Ganson, Peter Warlock, Van Rinkhuyzen, Anverdi, Faucett W. Ross, Jay Ose, Martin Gardner, Edward Victor, Stanley Norman, Norman Rashleigh, Harold G. Beaumont, C. F. Germelman, Horace E. Bennett, H. Fernandes, Bill Shewan and H. Fernandes.

• Give a Magician Enough Rope
• Cut-Knot-Join
• Impromptu Neck Penetration
• Rope Thru' Wrist
• Red and White Ropes
• A Remarkable Square Knot
• Stretching A Rope
• Equally Unequal Ropes
• Equally Unequal Variations
• More Variations
• Equally Unequal Patter Story
• Cut and Restored Rope
• Fast Cut and Restoration
• Variations on...

A knot is fairly tied in a short length of string. A gentle shake and the knot dissolves. No threads, magnets or false moves. Perfect for close-up or street. See video below.

1st edition 2016, 4 pages.

Most magicians are aware of the classic "Jumping Rubber Band Trick." However, here's a script and easy method for a full story routine about the exploits and escapades of that world famous escape artist Harry Houdini who in this case completely disappears from your fingers and reappears where least expected. Included with this routine is the more deceptive technique where the rubber band is "set" using only one hand rather than the customary two-handed "get ready."

1st edition 2018, length 5 min

The Hunter Puzzle Knot is a deceptive effect that a lot of magicians know, but is sometimes overlooked as a strong performance piece. Timothy built a routine around this simple but effective idea, that has proven to be a very commercial routine. For many years Timothy featured this very routine as his opening effect for Trade Show performances. It quickly stops one person and then another, the crowd then snowballing into a laughing involved crowd of 30-40 or more! Your clients will love the way this works as a traffic generator.

It’s also just as effective for large walk around or roving...

• The Unique Classic Reel
• The Unique Classic Locking Reel
• The Unique Classic Double Reel
• The Unique Classic Double Reel in a Wristwatch
• Ken Brooke's Method for the Serpent Silk

1st digital edition 2017, 8 pages photo illustrated.

Get the most from a classic trick. All you need is a single piece of rope (that can be borrowed) and you are always ready to entertain your audience. It packs so small but it plays so big. You can perform it close up or for a big audience.

"The Impossible Knot", originally called "G.W.Hunter's Puzzle Knot", was well-known to magicians fifty years ago but appears to have dropped out of use. This is a shame because it is easy to do, not well-known and, due to the method, almost impossible for a spectator to work out even when he is apparently shown how it is done. In short, it's a useful thing...

Once upon a time I saw a magician do a routine with three ropes hanging from a stick. At the end of one rope there was a silk. He made the silk to magically jump between the ropes. This was amazing. I wanted to do this, but how? Then I invented this routine that's very impressive. Charles Bertram's old routine "Here, There and Everywhere" has the same effect but the method is very different, my method has the big advantage that you can let the spectator check the rope and knots out before the magic happens! Which makes this an impossible illusion. One nice aspect of Jump-O-Ring is that you can...

Featuring the rope magic of Edward Victor, Shigeo Takagi, and Harry Carnegie. This was part of the Supreme 'Know How' series written and edited by Will Ayling, which was the continuation of the famous Teach-In series by Lewis Ganson.

1st edition 1987; original 36 pages; PDF 44 pages.

4. Contents
5. Cut & Restored Rope
5. - Requirement
6. - And So To Cut
8. - The Extra Piece
8. - The Extra Loop
13. Edward Victor's Original Cut & Restored Rope Routine
13. - The Know How
18. - Harry Carnegie's Patter For The Edward Victor Rope Trick
21. The Off Knot
23. Rope Routine by Shigeo Takagi of Japan
23. - Apparatus
23. - Method
23. - First part - the...

Link a rubber band on a signed card frame with a flash of fire. Give this impossible object away as a souvenir. The gimmick is exceedingly clever and not too difficult to make, but will require some care and patience.

1st edition 2014, length 13 minutes

Harlan Tarbell said to this publication: "The greatest work ever published on Linking Rings." Jack's long cherished secrets are yours in his ring through ring, ring through arms, special three-ring routine, a.s.o.

On top of the linking ring instructions Jack Miller also shares with you a separate chapter on ring and rope penetrations. These latter methods are so ingenious and puzzling as to seem uncanny, and are rarely seen performed.

1st edition 1945, 32 pages; 1st digital edition 2016, 30 pages.

Magic on a Shoelace is an exploration of the use of the common bow knot for creating new rope and string effects.

"There’s some fun stuff in there!" - Dan Harlan

• Untie a shoe instantly
• Put a finger ring on a shoelace without sleight of hand
• Take a ring off a shoelace without sleight of hand
• Pull a ribbon or streamer through a magic wand
• Put a large ring on a rope without using the ends
• Turn the standard “Magic Shoelaces” into a four phase presentation piece
• Learn how to pull tied shoelaces apart effortlessly
• Plus additional tips and secrets!

"What a creativity in your book!" - Flip

"...this treatise is a steal for $25!" - Robert E. Neale, MUM March 2006.

Rope Sculptures - Learn how to turn a piece of rope into a rope rabbit puppet, then animate, levitate and vanish the creature. Totally impromptu. Change a piece of rope into mouse or rat. You can perform powerful routines similar to Dan Garrett's Judy the Mouse or Quentin Reynolds handkerchief mouse impromptu and then...

This is one of the best books by Houdini, because here he writes about something he really knows a lot about. With many of his escapes he had to be very familiar with the knots he was tied up. This book has many good illustrations and several photos where Houdini himself demonstrates certain ties. It is a great collector item as well as source of information. If you can only buy one book by Houdini, by this one.

1st edition, 1920, Will Goldston Limited, London; 80 pages.

4. Photograph - Ira E. Davenport and "Houdini".
5. Foreword
8. For Opening of Rope Act
11. A Simple Release
12. The Kellar Tie ...

From the introduction by Lewis Ganson:

A magician's textbook on the great comedy trick of the cut and restored necktie!

Suitable for any kind of show, close-up, banquets, sales meetings, hospitality suites, floor shows, stage. An ideal number for any audience. Sixteen laugh getting routines by a pro who made a reputation with it. Add this easy to do material to your own repertoire. Illustrated ebook.

• Introduction
• The Principal Character ... Mr. "C" (Cravat) Tie
• Preparing the Spectator
• Master Cut Necktie Presentation
• Trial by Fire
• A (Very) Flashy Tie
• A Bag and a Bird
• All That's Fit to Press
• Ask Playboy
• Commercial Conjuring ...

So crazy this may sound, Ralf has come up with a method to do the classic unlinking of two linked rubber bands which does not use sleight-of-hand - no moves. Watch the demo video.

1st edition 2019, length 11 min.

A compilation of wonderful rope routines. A funny cut and restored rope routine for kids; a unique routine in which six loops are counted, three of these loops link together and the other three change into a giant loop with three knots (no gimmick); and Rope and silks combination.

There are also two rope routines by Ronald Dayton (a comedy effect and a rope through neck effect) and more. 84 illustrations. No gimmicks and all the routines except the first one use the same rope over and over again (no cutting).

1st edition 1996; 20 pages.

Table of Contents

3. Introduction
4. Tubulos
5. K-not...

Many years ago, Ted Collins devised the Panama Rope Trick. With this trick he won the cup for the best rope trick of the I.B.M. Convention at Fort Worth. A length of rope, that can be borrowed, is cut not one but three times and the four pieces tied together. Rope is now handed to a spectator and is completely restored. The routine is fully explained with a novel presentation by Ken de Courcy.

Now for two wonderful little-known variations. 'The Legs Of Man' by Vivian St. John. The idea is that a piece of rope is shown and tied so that it forms two circles. It is then cut in two places, then pulled through...

This is not your typical grandma's (ala Grandma's necklace) version of rope through body. Instead, this is ropes through body on steroids. It uses no gimmick rope either and everything can be examined. This is an illusion that fits into a briefcase and yet fills the stage with three spectators and yourself. Talk about playing big and packing small, this is the ultimate. It's based on an historical fact that pirates use to torture people for both information and for the entertainment of the crew. This is a historical fact that makes this version of the trick not only logical, but historically...

Here’s a unique handling for the “Professor’s Nightmare” rope routine that you’ll use in your act.

WHAT THE AUDIENCE SEES:

The magician cuts a length of rope into three pieces of different lengths; small, medium and long. The three pieces are stretched until they appear to be all the same length. The three pieces of rope are then tied together. The knots vanish and apparently the rope is fully restored. Until now the effect is a standard one. But wait…here comes the incredible finale! One knot is magically thrown back onto the rope then jumps away leaving the rope completely...

"One of my signature routines uses a length of ungimmicked rope that is neither cut nor restored ... I created it 40 years ago and have performed it probably 10000 times. So I am pretty qualified to judge Daniel Rowan's new book on rope magic. And I like it." - Jim Kleefeld (MUM December 2020)

Pure Magic with Rope is Daniel Rowan's fourth collection of new ready-to-work rope and string tricks. Most of the effects do not require an on-stage assistant. All of the tricks are impromptu, play big, but can be done close-up and surrounded. The ebook is a collection of tricks with a 5/8 inch piece of rope...

Two equal lengths of rope magically join up to form one solid piece of rope in full view with no cover or excess movements. Simple to construct and a delight to perform. Within the skill range of anyone. It was a favorite of Billy McComb.

1st edition 2020, PDF 3 pages, video 54s.