Green’s Dictionary of Slang

everything necessary to deal with a situation.

1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sportsman (Melbourne) 26 Apr. 2/7: What wi’ their red lights, aod green lights, and fog, and colour blindness tbe old bag of tricks is nothing but a blooming collidoscope.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) II 170: I had to sell the whole bag of tricks.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 209: You may not be of account to others, but you’re the whole box of tricks to yourself.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 15 Oct. 4/8: Curse poli-tics and politicians, / They merely worry me; / I’d like to see the box of tricks / Beneath the briny sea!
1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 46: He seized on his truck and rushed the whole box of tricks straight down the stairs [...]. [Ibid.] 232: Ther whole bag iv tricks was here, includin’ some fine female relations.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 286: All the classy points of a heroine in a thirty-five-cent magazine serial, — dark eyes, dark, wavy hair, good color scheme in her cheeks, — the whole bag of tricks.
1916		T. Burke Limehouse Nights 15: It is Battling Burrows, the lightning welterweight of Shadwell, the box o’ tricks, the Tetrach of the ring.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 194: All I bleeding do is train and fight and fight and train till I’m sick and tired of the whole bag of tricks, so there.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 289: Dubois has had the whole box of tricks — high school and university.
1963		M. Anderson A River Rules My Life 23: Poof! Up went the whole box of tricks!
1976		Jenkins & Shrake Limo 62: ‘Hell of a track record in News, Frank. I mean, the space shots, the hearings, the whole bag of tricks’ .