Klingl Magic Shop Trade Sign. Vienna, ca. 1876. Heavy wooden hand painted exterior trade sign lettered in red and gold on a green field with the text “Zauber – Vexler – Scherz / Artikel / Conjuring – Tricks – Puzzles - Jokes,” the words bounded by a black and gilt triple-ruled border. from this well-known Austrian magic shop which operated continuously for over 125 years. With heavy metal mounting brackets at the rear. Constructed in two sections, overall dimensions approximately 33 ½ x 153 ¾”. Considerable wear and chipping to surface and finish from years of continuous use. SCARCE; only the second trade sign for a magic shop to come to market at public auction we have been able to trace.

Klingl’s magic shop was founded in 1876 in Vienna’s first district, at Kärntnerstrasse 48, where this sign hung on its façade. The name of the shop, Zauber-Klingl (“magic bell”) came into being around 1907, inspired by the chime that hung over its door, which rang when patrons entered and exited. Michael Klingl, a former locksmith and craftsman, founded the business and was later succeeded by other members of his family, including his widow Rosa, and son Sigmund, who maintained incredibly high standards of craftsmanship that arguably led to the construction of the finest magic props of the art’s “golden age,” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, surpassing in quality the work of Willmann, Brema, Thayer, and virtually all other contemporary craftsmen of parlor, stage, and close-up magic apparatus. Though the business relocated several times throughout its century-spanning history, this sign was used at its first location. Though it was later replaced with a reverse-painted glass trade sign (now part of the permanent collection of a public museum in Vienna), this sign remained in storage until Klingl’s business finally closed in 2011.