I discovered this back around 1928 but, to date, it has never appeared in print to my knowledge. The discovery was quite accidental but at that time I was spending a lot of time and study on one-way back effects and chanced upon it. I can’t guarantee this with any other back than the League Backs of Bicycle make. I consider that design the best one-way backed card for many reasons.

Faces of cards are susceptible to the one-way principle in twenty-two instances if only the spot cards are considered. Picture cards generally have some differences that can be noted but the Jack, Queen and King of Spades are the only three court cards with a definite one-way design at the center of their faces. That gives us twenty-five cards in the deck that can be discovered by their faces when reversed.

Now comes the strange part of all this. Arrange the faces so all are pointing the same way. Now turn them over and check the backs – the three wing design at the center of the back on League cards.

The back designs will all be pointing the same way also !

Possible now is a very cute table trick and one which will fool a magician who may suspect you’re using a one-way deck. In effect, you count off 25 cards from the deck, saying that it is all you need for the test. Hand these to a person to overhand shuffle and then take them back. Fan them and have one drawn. The moment it is out, close the fan and hand the cards directly to another person and ask the first man to push his card back anywhere among the others while they are all out of your hands.

However, this manoeuvre reverses the deck so that the selected card is now reversed in the deck of 25 cards.

Have this person now shuffle the cards and then as you turn your back tell him to deal them on the table into five rows of five cards each. Also tell him that at any time and as often as he wishes he is to turn a card face up. Thus 8 or 10 of the cards are face up in the square and the rest are face down. This is the point that will fool the card men because the face up and face down cards are at random as desired by the spectator.

However, all of this means nothing because both the faces and backs of the cards are reversible and it is the simplest thing in the world for the performer to look at the square of cards and locate the one turned card. When dealing them, a spectator will deal them all the same. Thus the face up cards will all point one way and the face down cards will check with each other. And regardless of whether the chosen card is among one group or the other, it will be the only reversed card of its kind !

I always find that a neat presentation at this point is to have the spectator who drew the card think of the row across and then the position in the row of his card if it has been turned up (the man who lays them out does not know the card). If it hasn’t been turned up he is to think that and I tell him so. Then I take his wrist, move it over the square and finally drop it on the chosen card.

As a test of muscle reading it is good and seems perfectly fair because you didn’t hold or control the deck for the return of the card.