Frame Up

This is my conception of an appearing card or picture in a frame which has been shown to be quite unprepared. The simple construction is my own, and together with an original method of forcing the card or picture, one has a difficult trick to ponder.

Like all such frames to appear in books and on the market in the past this one has a glass face, a plain white card to lay on the glass, and a dark colored cardboard backing. When the pieces are in place they are secured by a single twist catch on each side of the frame’s back.

During my forty years in magic my many travels through India (I am a Parsi) have resulted in numerous engagements at the homes of the wealthy. I construct my own apparatus and it has been necessary to devise means whereby a trick may be accomplished so that nothing remains behind when it is over. It is not possible to have special tables because of the conditions under which I work in those places.

The cardboard backing used in the frame is prepared. Two pieces are used and held together at two sides and one end by very narrow cardboard strips between. This forms a “pocket” card which is open at the one end. Into this pocket can be slid a duplicate white card and clean sheet of the pasteboard to be used in the frame for the picture.

At the open end of this prepared backing one side is trimmed about an eighth of an inch to form a lip with the other side. Then, at the center of this trimmed edge, cut a little half moon piece out for a thumb hold. It should be half an inch long and half an inch deep so that the thumb will cover it when showing the cardboard on both sides. I have covered my cardboard with a dark design of wall paper.

Design a picture or paint a large reproduction of a playing card on one side of a white pasteboard and insert it into the pocket of the cardboard so that its back will face the thumb cut-out. Put the glass in the frame and a duplicate white pasteboard on it. Then put the backing on and fasten down.

First show the complete frame containing the blank “impression” material inside. Remove the backing, showing both sides, and dropping it carelessly upon the table you hand the frame and plain pasteboard for examination. Take back the frame and glass first and hold it in your left hand flatwise to the audience with one of the long sides towards your body. Your left thumb is on top side at the left end with the fingers underneath.

Pick up the backing with the right hand at its closed end and with the thumb cut out upwards at the left end. As you explain that the backing is an insulator to keep thoughts from hitting the “impression” card from both directions at once, you lay it part way into the frame so that the left thumb can reach the cut out. The backing is pulled a little to the right while the left thumb exerts pressure, and thus the inserted picture card is drawn out somewhat. The thumb relaxes while the backing is moved to the left which brings the edge of the insert against the left end of frame and the thumb then presses again. This time the right hand removes the backing with one move and the picture card is laying inside the frame against the glass.

At this time you look towards the person who has the plain pasteboard asking if he is satisfied with the examination. Lay the frame on the table with the backing overlapping it and get the pasteboard from the audience. Pick up the frame alone with left hand, always keeping its side edge towards the audience and, holding it as before, lay the retrieved pasteboard not quite entirely into the frame. Its right end is up onto the frame’s end about a quarter inch.

Pick up the backing as before and slide it into the frame. The astute reader will have no illusion here about what happens. The trimmed lip of the backing makes easy the engagement of the pasteboard’s end and the action slides the blank piece directly inside the backing. Now the fasteners are applied. Someone is asked to hold the frame on his lap with both hands on top.

Next a card or picture is chosen by my force method. I will explain it with ordinary cards but many times I have used it with picture postal cards for effectiveness. In such a case it is necessary to have a photograph made of the one to force and enlarged to fit the frame you use.

There are hundreds of tricks depending upon a force. If the force is correct and convincing the experiment retains all of its mystery. If it is doubtful to the audience the experiment never has a convincing climax. And here is another drawback. Previously known methods required the performer to run down to the audience or a person has to come to the performer.

I have eliminated these disadvantages with an original method used for many years. You show a perfect pack and shuffle it. You want a card selected giving a fair chance. You show a drapeless table or any cleared flat place and tell that you would drop cards one by one on your left palm or something, and at this time you carelessly pick up a fan (a flat fan on the order of a ping-pong bat. Ed.) and show it.

You tell them that if after dropping one card onto the fan from the deck in the right hand with its back up they do not like it, you will drop it on the floor, but if it is selected you will drop it on the table for further use. This is then done – but the card is forced.

How ? The fan is prepared. It is made of two thin cardboard which are stuck together only on the edges leaving a free space between A to B in Fig. 1. This forms a kind of pocket in which the card to be forced (Fig.1, D) is inserted. These cardboards should be molded outwards to bulge out a little so that after sticking they stay apart and do not hold the inserted card which should move freely in the pocket thus formed. The illustrations are made to show how the performer himself sees his left hand holding the fan Fig. 1, C is the card dropped on the fan, but not selected by the audience, so the handle is twisted towards the left downwards and towards the audience who see the card falling to the ground, or floor. Continue until they say “stop” and this time you extend your thumb to the card “E” holding it as in Fig. 2. On turning the fan away from the audience the card “D” from the pocket will drop onto the table, the audience thinking it to be their own card as chosen.

Now the balance of the pack in the right hand is placed deliberately on the card “E” and all handed over to an assistant or laid aside on another table. The forced card is in full view where it has been dropped and everything has appeared most fair.

The chosen (?) card is now exhibited and all people present are asked to concentrate upon it. Then the spectator with the frame stands up and shows that an image has been transmitted. You take the frame from him, giving him the card as a souvenir, take out the backing which you toss carelessly to the table, and then have a person remove the picture from the frame inside himself.