Joe Berg was a professional magician and magic dealer who lived and worked in Chicago, Illinois and Hollywood, CA. He was born in Pinsk

Pinsk

Pinsk , a town in Belarus, in the Polesia region, traversed by the river Pripyat, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers. The region was known as the Marsh of Pinsk. It is a fertile agricultural center. It lies south-west of Minsk. The population is about 130,000...

, Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 (currently Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

) and immigrated to the U.S. with his parents in 1914.
Mr. Berg reportedly sold magic effects and props to such noteworthy entertainers as Harry Houdini, Harry Blackstone, Sr. and Howard Thurston among others.

Affiliations/published memoirs

On the autobiographical section of his web site, the semi-professional magician, Manyfingers Hostetler comments about visiting Joe's shop in California during the 1960s.