You begin this one by having your wife leave the room (or does she do that anyway when you begin doing tricks ?). Have her hidden as far away and with as many closed and locked doors intervening as possible. Play this fact up. Then shuffle the deck and have a spectator cut. With the deck face down before him, the spectator now cuts off any number of cards up to half the deck. Without looking at it, he places the bottom card of his cut off portion in his pocket, keeping the rest of the packet himself. The performer,…
You hand a man a deck of cards. He stands in front of the audience and holds them face down behind his back. You tell him to remove any card from within the deck, keep his eyes tightly closed, and while thus incapacitated bring the card around, still with its back to the audience, touch it to his forehead for a second and then put it safely into his back pocket. He can't (and doesn't) know what it is. You can't possibly read his mind because of that. And yet, after he opens his eyes, you tell him to pick…
You may not care for this curious trick, but try it once to see how it goes over for you. Glimpse the bottom card before you begin. Let us assume that it is the Three of Spades. Have the cards divided into four nearly equal piles, then spread each pile into a fan. We shall number the fans from one to four, from your left to your right. At this point pause and tell the audience that they are about to witness what is known to the magical profession as the wonderful Three of Spades trick (naming the glimpsed card…
As a space filler, I can do no less than pass on what has been for me an exceedingly nice and sure location. It will be of good use to those who like to dabble with such momentary "pop-ups", as I term them, and who want something sure to fool the better card experts. You lay the deck down and ask someone to give it a good dovetail shuffle so that no card can be in a known position. Tell him to pull a card from out of the middle of the pack, look at it, put it on top…
Complicated to an impractical extreme was the following trick which, after much thought, I have made so simple that a child can work it. The top 28 cards of the deck are arranged as follows: The top 7 of the deck are in any order you like and are: AC, 7C, 3H, KH, 5D, 9D, JD; from 8 to 14 are these cards in any order: 2S, 7S, JS, 2C, 10C, 3D, 6D; from 15 to 21 in any order: 4S, 6S, QS, KS, 4H, 5H, 7D; and from 22 to 28 are: 8S, 10S, 8H, 9H, JC, QC, KC.…
Removing from his finger an odd appearing ring, the performer states that it has a peculiar occult power and originally was a valued possession of the famed Merlin. It seems that after looking at the ring, a person sees the last object with which the ring came in contact, no matter what actually is held before him. The performer offers to demonstrate this uncanny situation. A spectator is asked forward to act as a custodian of the truth. A pack of cards is mixed, spread across the table faces down and the spectator freely pushes out any one. The performer…
Calling the trick Preposterous, Martin Gardiner furnished a trick for Jinx #40 which received nice mentions but was passed up by many more. I have combined it with a somewhat similar trick of Charles Jordan's and whenever I've used it, comments have been good and the requests for the working were numerous. Certainly it is one of those things you have to KNOW, rather than SEE HOW, for there is nothing to catch and follow. You fan through a borrowed deck and remove the Joker or extra cards. In this action you simply count from face of deck and note…
A NEW TORN CIGARETTE PAPER WRINKLE Versions of the torn and restored cigarette paper with duplicate waxed to thumb nail were deceptive close-up methods. For a small audience and under more stringent conditions, try this. Wax rolled duplicate to front or ball of the thumb instead, this portion of thumb being kept downward while presenting. Thumb should be dry and free from perspiration. For best results, apply wax, either diachylon or magician's wax, after slightly warming. In presenting, after tearing and rolling the first sheet, remove the duplicate roll, squeeze the two together, and show them as one between the…
One of the great (and kicked around) principles of recent years is the idea for salt on a chosen card in order to find it by hitting the side of the deck with the shoe. While the trick has become fairly well known among magicians I have seldom seen it done because most performers never have the salt. This method of handling does away with that requisite and makes the feat entirely impromptu at any spot. Crimp or bend the whole pack with the faces of the cards concave, and ask a spectator to insert the blade of a penknife…
Giving a plate full of walnuts to a spectator, the performer asks him to pass them out to the others in the audience, retaining one for himself. This having been done, the magus hands the assistant a pack of cards for mixing. Taking back the cards, the performer says "I want you to select a card from this pack in the following manner: you may deal the cards onto my hand, one at a time, until you have a desire to stop; or I can deal the cards onto your hand until you say 'Stop'; or, if you wish, you…