Magic History 101: Thayer Blue Phantom

The Thayer Blue Phantom is another rare prop, one of my favorites in my vintage and antique magic collection.
The Blue Phantom was invented in 1924 by Viennese magician Hans Trunk, who called it “Das blaue Wunder” (The Blue Wonder).
In 1930, Thayer Magic began producing it as “The Blue Phantom”.
It was popular from the start, and still today is a very desirable magic prop.

Because of the age of this prop, and because I want to preserve its excellent condition, I don't put it through the full routine in the video.
But this is how the routine goes:
Several separate checkers are stacked on the rod with the blue one at the top.
They are then covered by the cylinder.
Upon lifting the cylinder, it is seen that the blue checker has mysteriously moved to the center of the stack!
The cylinder is replaced and it once again removed only to find the blue checker has melted all the way down to the bottom of the stack!
The checkers are then removed one by one and shown once again to be just solid and separate checkers.