http://www.hammacher.com/OnlineCatalog/

You can zoom in to see it clearly. Although at some point there may be a different version of the catalog at this link after some time has passed from the date I’m posting this, so you might not see this item on page 31, if at all.

There are several sources that cite the “Beatles bought hundreds” story. Some say the box was metal, some say wood. This article on this page says plastic. In the picture of John holding the box, it looks metal to me.

According to one website, an abstract from a New Yorker article from 1962, a housewife whose husband was a retired engineer made the box for her, thinking it would amuse her. She brought it to the president of Hammacher Schlemmer thinking he’d like it, and he did, so he made it a catalog item.

Several sources state that Dwight Eisenhower even bought one of these boxes!

Perhaps this “Nothing Box” has become Lennon/Magic Alex folklore because Alex’s name got mixed up with it. Somehow, perhaps, because he was making similar types of things, and because John had one of these boxes, people just put his name with the “Nothing Box.” But it’s quite obvious to me that the “Nothing Box” was clearly out in the world, and John seems to have acquired one, according to the photo of him holding it, several years before Alex Mardas ever came into the Beatles circle. Also, in the link that Tony Sables provides above, Alex Mardas himself makes no mention of the “Nothing Box.”