(MIKE) HAMMER MYSTERY At the Overseas Press Club annual meeting, the director of special projects at Newsweek, Alexis Gelber, handed over the gavel as club president to Richard Stolley of Time Inc.

But there was some question as to which gavel she would pass down to her successor – Ms. Gelber opted to give him two. One was made of oak, from the Old North Church in Boston, and the other gavel came from the Society of Magazine Writers.

When asked about the origin of the gavels, the club’s executive director, Sonya Fry, told the Knickerbocker, “I have no idea. We’ve just had them forever.”

On September 14, the OPC sponsors a program on “Reporting and Editing International News in the Post-9/11 World.” Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism dean Nicholas Lemann will moderate the panel, whose bill features Jeff Bartholet of Newsweek; Susan Chira of the New York Times; Barton Gellman of the Washington Post; Adi Ignatius of Time magazine; David Schlesinger of Reuters, and Bill Spindle of the Wall Street Journal.

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WILSON’S HOBBY A recent Knickerbocker column announced that Tannen’s magic shop has moved next to the former location of Martinka & Co., a magic shop of which Houdini once served as president.

Erudite author David Castronovo, an expert on critic Edmund Wilson, since informed the Knickerbocker that Wilson patronized Lou Tannen’s shop and got to know him: “Wilson,” Mr. Castronovo wrote, “had been fascinated by magic from his childhood, had his mother take him to Martinka’s (in a ‘rather dubious neighborhood’), and wrote his first story for the Hill School Record about a couple who kept a magic store.”

“I love these superior toy stores,” wrote Wilson in his journals, “Amateur magic, like Punch and Judy, has been a childish recreation that I have carried all through my life.” Mr. Castronovo added that Wilson and Tannen commiserated with each other about their arthritic thumbs, which can spell death to a magician’s dexterity.

Mr. Castronovo’s latest book, due out in September, is called “Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit: Books From the 1950s That Made American Culture” (Continuum).

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FILLMORE’S FOLIOS Readers can take comfort if they have dragged their feet in cataloguing their personal libraries. The first White House library, which Millard and Abigail Fillmore established in 1850, is just now getting around to being catalogued.

The Bibliographical Society of America is seeking a bibliographer to compile a catalogue of the library, and is offering a two-year position to accomplish the task. The job comes with office space and research facilities provided by the Rare Book Division in the Library of Congress, where the bibliographer will be designated as a Scholar in Residence.

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TRIVIA IN TARRY TOWN Joel Rudikoff

of Joel Rudikoff Art Books was among those exhibiting on Sunday at the Westchester Antiquarian Book & Ephemera Fair at the Marriott in Tarrytown, N.Y. He was speaking with the proprietor of Appledore Books and others and trading trivia questions.

Mr. Rudikoff asked: Which two baseball records by individual players are unlikely ever to be broken?

Read his answer in Thursday’s Knickerbocker column.

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ROGER REMEMBERED Farrar, Straus & Giroux is organizing a celebration of the life of publisher Roger Straus (1917-2004) with a program at the 92nd Street Y on September 29 at 3 p.m. featuring writers and editors.

On November 10, Queens College kicks off its 29th anniversary season of evening readings with its own tribute to Straus. At that event, participants include company president Jonathan Galassi; Jamaica Kincaid; Norman Manea; Susan Sontag; Derek Walcott, and Tom Wolfe.