A Classic Combination

The Chinese Wallet and the Buddha Papers

Sometime in the late 1980s I bought this simple little toy from a gift shop in Ambleside. If I open it out you can see that it is a combination of two folding objects, the Chinese Wallet and the Buddha Papers. The wallet is not, of course Chinese, and the papers have nothing to do with the Buddha.

The little red folded package opens out so that you could, for instance, place a coin inside and fold it back up.

I’m sure you know how this works. The wallet is then closed and opened from the other side. The package you can see now is another identical package glued back to back with the first. When you open it the coin has disappeared. Hey presto!

What I didn’t realise when I first played with this toy was that I was handling paperfolding history. The two parts of the toy, the Chinese Wallet and the Buddha Papers, both go back much further than you might expect (though possibly not if you have been paying close attention to this blog).

Let’s start with the Buddha Papers. The earliest publication of this magical effect that I know of is found in the book 'The discoverie of witchcraft' by Reginald Scot, Esquire, which was first published in 1584.

Since the font is not easy to read I will transliterate it for you: ‘The like or rather stranger than it may be done, with two papers three inches square a piece, divided by two folds into three equall parts at either side, so as each folded paper remaine one inch square: then glew the backsides of the two papers together as they are folded, and not as they are open, and so shall both papers seems to be but one; and which side soever you open, it shall appear to be the same, if you hide handsomely the bottome, as you may well do with your middle finger, so as to have a groat in one and a counter in the other (you having shewed but one) may by turning the paper seem to transubstantiate it. This may be best performed by putting it under a candlesticke, or a hat, etc, and with words seeme to do the feat.’

The Chinese Wallet goes back even further. In his book 'De Viribus Quantitatis', which was written around 1502, Luca Pacioli ( a contemporary and friend of Leonardo da Vinci) describes how to construct a device with two wooden slabs and three straps. If a straw is placed under the single strap and the wallet closed, Pacioli says, then opened again in the other way, the straw will appear under (trapped by) the other two straps. Old people entertain children with this device.

The same device, featuring a straw as Pacioli describes, appears in a painting by the Italian Bernadino Luini (1470 - 1533) which dates from around 1515.

It also appears, once again complete with straw, in another painting, this time by the Venetian Bernadino Licinio (1485 - 1565), which is said to date from between 1520 and 1530.

I am not sure why you would choose to have your portrait painted holding a Chinese Wallet (the child presumably had no choice). The clue may be in the words written on the wallet, ‘Carpendo Carperis Ipse’, which Google translates as ‘picking the fruit himself’ and the Royal Collection, the owners of the painting, as 'by plucking you yourself will be plucked', which still seems a little obscure to me. Perhaps it is an injunction against wasting your time with children’s games.

I also do not know who first realised that these two ancient devices could be combined into one magical effect. The earliest reference I know of to the combination is in 'Manuel Complet des Sorciers' by M Comte, which was published in 1829. The work describes how to make two Chinese Wallets, to each of which a set of Buddha Papers is added. A playing card placed in one can then be shown to have vanished and to have appeared in the other, which was previously empty. (My thanks to Edwin Corrie for this information.) More recently the effect appeared in 'Fun with Paper' by Joseph Leeming, which was published in 1939.

PS: An earlier version of this post did not include the information that the combined effect is first known to have appeared in 'Manuel Complet des Sorciers'.

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