So I found this clip on line one day, and it seemed to me very familiar. I was too young to remember meeting Harry Blackstone Sr., but my Dad told me that he did bring me to see the great man when I was little. The prop here is what looked familiar. I was sure I had moved it a few times in the years when my Dad stored equipment at rented garages around town. I remember that every time he needed something for a show, it was usually at the back of the garage and we would get covered in "Illusion Dust" and I'd sneeze for hours after. Both my Dad and I developed a distaste for black widow spiders at this time as well. They seemed to like to make their home in the storage areas near the props. We never found one in a prop, if we had I would probably have never gotten into the Dollhouse, tip-over box, death basket, Thurston sawing or a dozen other props again.
Any way, as I said this prop looked familiar. I remembered a photo of my Mom sitting in it when she was relatively young. I don't ever remember doing a show with the prop, but that is not a surprise since my Dad often collected illusions not for the purpose of performing them, but for studying, owning and ultimately re-selling. I finally found the photo I remembered and you can see it is indeed the same illusion that Blackstone performed in the above clip. I don't have a name for it, if you are reading this and know what it was properly called, please leave a message and I will post the information and be happy to give you credit. Someone out there probably still has this in their own collection.
Sometimes videos don't load properly, so here are a couple of screen shots of the video clip for comparison.
I received this info since I posted the comments originally. I have edited the author for his privacy, but the comments are very applicable....
the Blackstone illusion: it was originally owned by Nicola, and we called it the Nicola throne chair illusion. Nicola sold it to Harry Blackstone,Sr., after that your father bought it. I am not sure if your father bought it from Blackstone or George Hippissly, as Hippissly owned a number of Blackstone props. I had corresponded with Hippissly during the early 70's so I know this to be a fact. Hippissly also told me he had a "trap" cut in his living room to do a vanishing lady. As to what happened to the throne chair performed by Blackstone in the video...
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