Vanishing Champagne Bottle

ORIGINAL ITEM

VANISHING CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE made by Nielsen Magic

NEW ITEM

Vanishing Shampain Bottel

MESSAGE FROM NIELSEN MAGIC

We knew that sooner or later someone in either India or China would begin making the bottles. It was just a question of time.

From what we know origins of Vanishing Bottles come probably from the turn of the 20th century when craftmen were making shells that would be passed as a real bottle. I think Devant had a trick that involved this principle. The latex bottle was originated by Charles Weller, and he sold them in the from the 1950s through the 70s. As you know latex is a very rubbery and flexible material. The advantage of these bottles were that you could make the bottle either magically appear or vanish. The disadvantage was that because latex is porous, it is solid and does not look like glass. Another disadvantage of latex is that it decomposes with time, and a latex product only lasts a few years before it becomes brittle and crumbles.

In the 1960s Norm started experimenting with a coating for the latex, in order to make a bottle look like glass. He found a coating, and for a while he put out a latex Schlitz bottle. The coating was like a very shiny varnish that made his bottles look like they were made out of glass.

Norm temporarily sold the business in the late 60s due to his performing career, and bought it back in the mid 80s. It was at that time that he worked in trying to find a material that had enough transparency to look like a bottle. This material was vinyl. Since then Nielsen Magic has been manufacturing vinyl bottles. The advantage of vinyl is that it has a good degree of transparency, the bottles do have a glass-like finish and the material lasts indefinitely. The disadvantage is that they do not have the "appearing" qualities of latex because it takes longer for the material to recover its shape.

In my opinion, the Indian Bottle is a copy because they didn't even make an effort to offer any improvement on the item. They even copied the old color of our Champagne Bottles, and did not bother to fold the top edge of the bottle to round up the mouth.

The Champagne Bottles we are making now have a different color. Per multiple requests we changed the color to a very dark and deep green color - similar to that of a Dom Perignon color. That was a good move, as we have been unable to keep them in stock for long periods of time.

As far as our thoughts are concerned, all we can say is that we will just continue to do our own thing and offer the best quality product we can offer to the magic market. Customers will have to make a choice of which product they want to buy, and it is their support what will determine who will stay in or out of business. It is quite difficult to regulate the magic market.

This is a very small market, and it is costly to have any legal procedures (if they are any) for any infringements. I have always wondered what makes a magic trick original...Is it the effect, or the method? The audience only sees one effect, yet there can me so many methods to accomplish the desired result. Magicians come up with very clever and novel methods to accomplish a certain effect. From a layman's standpoint, it is still the same trick.

- Lupe, Nielsen Magic