Thurston employed an established magician and prop builder named Harry Jansen to perfect the illusion. Jansen's improved version of the apparatus featured a smaller box from which the victim's head and feet would protrude during the sawing. Goldin, Thurston and various other magicians employed by Goldin toured the United States performing this trick with great success at theatres belonging to the Keith-Orpheum group. Goldin had great promotional acumen and was fond of resorting to legal action to block anyone else, including Selbit, from competing with him in the USA. As a result, Goldin was sometimes wrongly credited as the originator of the sawing illusion.