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![\"KELLY-ANNE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/4629690_web1_Dean-Gunnarson.jpeg\")
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KELLY-ANNE RIESS \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n
Now you see it, now you don\u2019t. Winnipeg escape artist Dean Gunnarson stands where a historic plaque commemorating the founding of the International Brotherhood of Magicians once hung before mysteriously disappearing earlier this week.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looked like it had been pried off,\u201d Gunnarson said, adding a bolt remained in the wall and nearby flower beds had been disturbed.<\/p>\n
Thompson contacted people associated with the building to determine whether the plaque had been removed intentionally, but no one could account for its disappearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt breaks my heart that somebody would steal this to either throw it in a dumpster or for scrap metal,\u201d said Gunnarson, who added that a police report had not been filed yet.<\/p>\n
Thompson is attempting to determine whether surveillance footage might show what happened.<\/p>\n
The plaque was unveiled June 6, 1986, in a ceremony attended by then-mayor Bill Norrie, renowned Winnipeg magician Doug Henning and Len Vintus, who founded the International Brotherhood of Magicians in 1922.<\/p>\n
The organization went on to have more than 10,000 members in 88 countries as of 2022.<\/p>\n
The ceremony was recreated in June <\/a>2022<\/a>, when local magicians celebrated the organization\u2019s centennial by setting fire to a veil covering the historic marker at the Union Bank Building at 500 Main St., which is now home to Red River College Polytechnic\u2019s culinary and hospitality programs.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Dean Gunnarson (right) performs in 2022 a re-enactment of the ceremonial unveiling of a plaque marking the former Union Bank Building as the birthplace of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. (Supplied)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Vintus, whose real name was Melvin McMullen, was a 19-year-old Transcona resident when he rented an office on the seventh floor of the Union Bank Building and began building an international network of magicians.<\/p>\n Working with two American magicians, Jim Gordon and Don Rogers, he established an organization that would eventually attract some of the biggest names in magic, including David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy, and Lance Burton.<\/p>\n By the late 1920s, the organization moved its headquarters to the United States. Today, its local chapters are known as \u201crings.\u201d<\/p>\n Gunnarson said the plaque\u2019s disappearance represents a loss not only for Winnipeg but for magicians around the world.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just important to magic history or Canadian history,\u201d he said. \u201cAll the great magicians since 1922 \u2026 have been a part of this organization.\u201d<\/p>\n For Gunnarson, the loss is also deeply personal.<\/p>\n Vintus, who died in 1999 at age 96, was a close friend and mentor who entrusted Gunnarson with preserving his legacy.<\/p>\n Before his death, Vintus passed along a collection of magic magazines, correspondence and other memorabilia documenting his decades of involvement in the organization.<\/p>\n
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