1930 SAM Convention Program with Kolar child magician photograph: rare event and program: Thurston, Downs, Tarbel and Joseffey’s performance of Balsamo

This is a special package. First you have the child sensation of the time Betty Jane Kolar with the original rare photograph and her ad in the Convention Program.  You have Thurston lecturing on the business of magic.  The shows are incredible abut the main attraction of this catalog was the main attraction then: Joseffy and his performance of Balsamo the incredible talking skull!  This performance was legendary and the most talked about event of 1930.  This is where Joseffy put Balsamo right on Thurston’s lap and ran him through the paces.

At a performance of Balsamo in New York  a young John Mulholland whispered to a reporter for the New York World Telegram “That skull is one of the famous modern illusions of magic. No one knows how it is done but Joseffy.  There are men here tonight who have been anxious to see it for years.  It is magic for a magician”.  After the performance, the reporter wrote “There was not a doctor, lawyer, engineer, architect, merchant, dentist, broker, jeweler, professor or preacher in the audience who would have missed that evening. The law and the heaven, along with tomorrows skyscraper and the ticker tape and the business upturn would have to wait an hour or two”.

The photograph of the young child star Betty Jane Kolar is 8×10 and is a scarce item and together with the program and her full page ad make this one great ephemera package!  There is a single hole punched in the left top corner of the program and some damage to the top of the Kolar photograph. Both issues are pictured in the photos.