NICKLE, Robert (John Newbanks, 1842 – 99). America’s Greatest Prestidigitateur! St. Louis: St. Louis Globe-Democrat Job Printing, ca. 1879. Oversize letterpress broadside in three colors for a performance at Mitchell’s Theatre Comique featuring Nickle at the top of a wide-ranging variety bill including comics, singers, strongmen, Chinese performers, and acrobats. Nickle presents tricks and illusions supposedly designed for the American Centennial in 1876. 41 5/8 x 13 7/8”. Thinning and chips especially in margins; B+. Linen backed. RARE. Walter Floyd, an accomplished magician in his own right, worked for Nickle while a young man. He wrote anecdotes about his teacher in Houdini’s Conjurer’s Monthly for November, 1906, stating, “He was a most brilliant entertainer both on and off the stage; the published pictures do not do him justice; the hair and mustache were of a light red; the mustache measured nine inches each way, with goatee to match, upon almost any other man this would have looked ridiculous, but as he was a very large man with a full face it gave him a striking appearance, and were it not for his one failing he would undoubtedly have rivalled the greatest artists of his time … he had lost a part of his right thumb, and performed all of his work with the left hand. He told me that he lost his thumb on a paper cutter, while he was trimming a pack of cards to make ‘Strippers.’”