When more than one person helps in a card effect and the revelations are different from each other, there seems to be a better reaction from the onlookers, that is, as long as things aren't drawn out too much. Borrow someone's deck, have it shuffled, and offer it to spectator #1 for a selection. Turn your back while he shows it to the others, and at this moment peek at the deck's top card and remember it. Undercut the deck, have the card returned to the top of the original upper half, place the lower half on top of all,…
The Three Card Monte effect has stood the brunt of many variations. Without boasting I consider this one of the cleaner, quicker, and more convincing ways which a performer may use impromptu at any time with any cards. From a deck being used the performer asks that three cards be removed, preferably two spot cards and one picture card. They are handed him, and he uses nothing more. If the magician is adept at this game he may "throw" the cards several times in the regular method and then resort to the following idea as a climax, saying that perhaps…
Many card effects have a sound beginning and weak ending while others are built just oppositely. For that reason this pair of ideas should be found welcome. Together they make for a clean and complete novel discovery. Separately they may be used either for a force, or for a finale, in conjunction with other effects. The performer has a card selected in a quite fair manner and it is shuffled back by the spectator himself. The deck is dropped into an unprepared goblet, back to the audience. A silk handkerchief is thrown over them. The spectator is now requested to…
Effect : The performer has two assistants on either side of the stage whom we shall call L and R. The performer asks R to cut about one-third off a pack of cards and retain them. L cuts the remaining portion of the pack in half so that everybody has a third. Assistant R now takes a card from his own packet which he shows to the audience out front. Assistant L selects a card from his packet and the performer takes one from the cards he holds. Both he and L show their respective cards to those watching. Next…
To describe this effect as one would find it in most magical catalogues might be a bit presumptuous, for the reader will know the secret immediately after without the fun of sending to his dealer and waiting until the reply makes everything clear. Imagine, though, reading somewhere that the performer says he will write a prediction for one of his spectators. He hasn't paper handy so jots down a few words upon the face of one of the cards from his deck. Then he tosses the written on card into the spectator's own hat, never to touch it again. The…
Dear Ted : In a recent Jinx (#102) was a Poker move by Art Lyle using a double draw. This reminded me of a similar but slightly different move which I think is a little better covered. It was shown to me some years ago by an inveterate poker player. In the first place it can only be used while you yourself are dealing, but it's no detraction for any such dodge is employed but once or twice during an evening of play. Suppose you hold a pair of nines, a four, Queen, and Ace in your hand. Comes time…
The following effect together with the method for its performance have been found very acceptable over a period of years of professional engagements. In my card work I have always tried to think of the showmanship before the method, for it is what an audience thinks it is seeing that is more important to be true, than what actually takes place to make the effect possible. Most difficult sleights can almost always be circumvented by the use of a subterfuge. Behind-the-scenes trickery of this sort is decidedly permissible because the magician is supposed to be a wonder-worker or he would…
Novelty playing card monologues have always been liked, but such routines have also been very scarce. This one should find quite a few ready to use it, especially because, with the suggestions at its finish, little memory is necessary for its telling, and no memory at all for the set-up of the deck. A deck is removed from its case, given a false shuffle if possible, and a story told. It is during this that cards are taken off the top of the deck and shown to illustrate the theme. "I am going to tell you a story, and I'm…
I think it was Ralph W. Hull who suddenly made popular, with his Mental Discernment of a decade ago, the feat of locating a mentally thought of card by a system of procedure not easily recognized by the thinker. There were many who used this idea, because it made possible a dream of card men. As time went on, though, and as with all things, there came a demand for a more simplified way of handling the cards and the method of "discernment". Borrowing a pack of cards the performer has them well shuffled by anyone of the audience. Six…
These two effects may be presented together, one after the other, and serve as welcome proof that a principle may be duplicated immediately if dressed entirely differently the second time. Both effects are workable with subtleties which very effectively cover their principles, even to those quite initiated. To me. At least, the simple idea of reversing cards end for end is an immortal magical thought. I hope my applications will find favor. The magician's apparatus consists of two decks of cards to be described, a slate with chalk, and a one-inch cork ball at the end of a length of…