Cards in Magic & Conjuring

This publication is in my opinion among the best books on cards ever written, but it is rarely mentioned or recommended. I am not sure why this is. Perhaps one reason is that Jack Merlin himself has not left a large footprint in the magic literature besides this one publication. He has a published trick in Expert Card Technique and if you read Card College 1 you will have learned the Jack Merlin's Riffle Shuffle. Farelli mentions in his Farell's Card Magic: "I agree with Mr. Jack Merlin that the custom of continually practicing in front of a glass is the cause of the unfortunate habit many magicians have of blinking at the precise moment of performing...

This is truly a hidden gem - a lost treasure. Very few know of its existence and you will encounter almost no references to it. When you read this you will ask yourself: "Why isn't this work known by every cardician?" Some of those who have read it value it as much as they value Erdnase. Others would not trade all card books published in the last 10 years for it.

It is an immensely practical work dealing with situations when something goes wrong, or you face difficult spectators. You'll never again be afraid to try out a new trick, even if they literally see what you do, even if they really catch...

A collection of ten astonishing tricks, all done with a regular deck and basic card magic knowledge. Everything is nicely photo illustrated.

Hi-Jack! - A goofy prediction turns into a deadly one-two punch of visual changes.

Peach! - Check out this brand new take on the classic 'Princess Card Trick', that ends with you revealing the actual thought of card, and then changing all the others to Aces.

Chip-Shot! - A reworked multi-phase Daley's Last Transposition routine, routined as a 'follow the leader' and wrapped up in a gambling presentation, featuring a top-secret handling for the...

A playing card missing a corner melts through a window glass pane.

Once the card has melted through the glass the spectator can touch the glass. This method is very quick and cheap to make, about $1, and thus the name of the trick. Works with any glass pane that is not too thick.

[Note: The $1 cost statement assumes you have common supplies available when it comes to gaffing cards, such as double sided tape, invisible thread, etc. If you do not have these available then it will cost you more, because you will likely have to purchase more than you actually need for this one gimmick. Also keep in mind that most will incur shipping costs to stock up on these supplies.]

1st edition 2020, length 21 min 48 s....

Vintage gold. This was Hugard's first manuscript released to the profession; originally hand-typed and sold only through him. These entertaining card effects require no apparatus and no prepared cards, making them ready to present wherever you may be: at a party, backstage, or after dinner. While the title says 10, you actually get a full dozen card miracles, moves and subtleties presented with a standard deck. Fit for the program of the most fastidious performer, yet easily within the reach of the amateur. While the author claims that no complicated moves are involved, we should note that these...

Both ebooks include original tricks using previously unreleased VR Stack Pro, which is explained in detail.

This is Allan's variation of the famous Eleven Card Trick. That reads like a joke, but it ain't. The spectator counts ten cards and hands them to the performer who double checks counting them aloud. However often he counts, adds and removes cards, they never really are ten cards. (Requires knowledge of Carly's False Count.)

runtime: 6min 40s

The most popular magic tricks amongst magicians are card tricks, yet there are few jokes and sayings that cover those ‘quiet’ moments between tricks and moves. Here you will find many. What about just adding some comedy entertainment to your next card trick? Looking for the right quick one-line joke - you should find one, or many more here.

1st edition 2020, PDF 15 pages.

• Introduction
• The Mystic Seven
• A Reverse Problem
• Behind The Back
• "Mirable Visu"
• The Four Hands
• Cutting The Cards
• By The Toss Of A Coin
• The Betraying Voice
• The Personality Card Trick
• The Caronia Mystery
• The "Colon" Mystery
• Not Quite Balanced

1st edition 1952; PDF 14 pages

Here are a dozen quality card magic effects that can be performed with an unprepared deck at a moment's notice. While not self-working, most of these miracles rely on just one or two sleights. Some require a setup. Crisp illustrations by Dr. Harlan Tarbell help make it easy to understand and master.

Here's what's included:

• Improved Topsy-Turvy Deck - The deck is flipped half face-up and half face-down, then sloppily shuffled. The deck mysteriously rights itself, except for three selected cards, which are the only reversed cards in the pack. This will slay your audience.
• Face to Face Fantasy - A cheek-to-cheek...

This package includes the templates and photos of 13 incredible 'impossible' cards. There are no instructions of how to fold the cards. For each card you get the template of how to cut the card as a PDF, and a photo of how the folded card looks like. We are assuming you know how to fold these cards. If you do not know check out Ralf Rudolph's various impossible folding videos. One that will get you started is Impossible Foldings Volume 2 (Part 1)

The 13 cards are:

• 2-Framed
• 3-Link
• 3-Framed
• 4-Linked
• Arachnophobia
• Card Sculpture
• Hexagon
• Rounded P-Link
• Square Knot
• Star Card
• Tri-Clops
• Two Swirled
• Wave

1st edition...

This ebook explores the classic "Quick Three Way" plot. How can the faces of three playing cards be shown to be the same?

• Foreword
• Quick 3-Way (Ed Marlo)
• New Quick 3-Way (Ed Marlo)
• Freeway Three-Way (John Bannon)
• Another Quick 3-Way (Ed Marlo)
• Slide Three-Way (Phil Goldstein)
• Cervon’s Quick Three-Way
• Revised Quick D-Way (Derek Dingle)
• Tweaked Three-Way (Jon Racherbaumer)
• Okal's 3-Way (Bill Okal)
• Kay-Kay Tri-Way (Kevin Kelly)
• Flustrating Three-Way (Brother John Hamman)
• Rhumba Three-Way (Vallarino)
• Montesque Three-Way (Ed Marlo)
• Bonus: Least-Likely Find

1st edition 2017, 42 pages....

This year, 2018, marks the 100th anniversary of a fantastic principle which was first proposed in 1917. Although, many performers are unaware of this today, here are a few hard hitting card mentalism routines based on this fantastic principle combined with what I would like to call "Multiple Ins" principle (as opposed to the well known Multiple Outs principle). Well, the intention is to continue the suspense about what this principle is, into the first few pages of this ebook.

There are 3 stunning routines, several variations and a secret bonus.

All the routines are mostly self working....

• Super Do As I Do
• A Double Change
• Kings On The Loose
• Preface To Out Of This World
• Billy Wiggins' Card Trick
• Cards Of Sympathy
• Five Card Super Vanish
• Turnabout
• Nest Egg
• The Spectator's Force
• Kidnapped
• Marlo's Hofzinser
• The Buckle Break
• Marlo Bottom Count
• Mystical Location
• A Nervy Card Trick
• Hockley's Prediction

1st edition 1958, 36 pages; PDF 34 pages.

Kyle MacNeill and John Gelasi are two innovative and young creators, that live, breathe and sleep magic. With over 15 Ebooks between them, they decided to create an Ebook that is jam-packed with old tricks, new tricks, sleights, and theory. And everything went to plan...

2 Can Play at This Game contains a total of 16 (predominantly card) effects - (10 old, 6 new), 5 sleights (4 old, 1 new) and a previously published essay. Think of it as a best-of (hopefully!) with seasoned with some new effects. Hopefully a blend you will dig!

From the Intro:

Twenty card miracles that you can do, updated and given fresh, new life for modern performers and audiences. This isn't your grandfather's manuscript of card tricks. If you have Grant's original Tricks with a Short Card, you're getting only half the story. This new, revised edition adds a whopping 350% more content.

If you're new to magic, the effects you're able to present will look like you've spent years of practice to polish them to perfection. And if you're a pro, you'll appreciate and enjoy T. A. Whitney's updated approach to these pasteboard miracles.

"Very clever. You need this...

Ian Baxter steps forward with yet another twist on a classic from the past. Eddie Clever's Hallucination gets a working over here, thanks to a recently published variation from Todd Karr.

"A very direct effect here - entertaining presentation, plays big, kicker ending and can be done with a borrowed deck. This card mystery has it all!" - David Jones

1st edition 2020, PDF 4 pages.

This book has nothing to do with the "21 Card Trick". However it features twenty-one of the best card tricks Peter Duffie has to offer. Three other individuals significantly contributed to this book. They are Roy Walton, Gene Maze and Marty Kane. It can get hardly any better when it comes to cards.

1st edition, 2000

BETWEEN THE ACES: Very slowly you deal cards onto the table and a spectator stops you anywhere. He notes the card stopped at - it is placed on top of the deck and the dealt cards dropped on top with absolutely no moves. Despite the fairness of the procedure, the selected card is now...

Every magician, at one time or another, needs a sure-fire method of switching decks. With this clever publication, you get 25 of them.

Newly revised and updated, this must-have reference not only includes the mechanics of the switches themselves, but also offers a behind-the-scenes peek of how performers work their magic with cards. Included is the full handling of Herbert Brooks' sensational card-from-pocket mystery, just as he performed it for years on the vaudeville stage. Some of the methods involve no apparatus, others rely on props owned by most magicians.

Paul Fleming wrote:

A series of clever little tricks, made possible with the specially printed miniature cards as originally supplied by Supreme Magic.

• Forcing a Card
  • One-Way Force Deck
  • Svengali Deck
  • Rough And Smooth Deck
  • Classic Fan Force
  • Henry Christ Method
  • The Handkerchief Force
  • Simplicity Force
  • Another One
• Effect No. 1. A Prediction Gag
• Effect No. 2. The Card Knife
• Effect No. 3. Card Catching
• Effect No. 4. A Betcha
• Effect No. 5. Wise-Guy
• Effect No. 6. Crystal Gazing Extra-Ordinary
• Effect No. 7. Caxton’s Dream
• Effect No. 8. Sixteen Cards
• Effect No. 9. World’s Fastest Pass
• Effect...

In 2009, Raphael was working on a two-deck ACAAN (that became the bonus routine of this ebook) when the italian magician Tommaso Guglielmi shared his new creation with me... that was based on the exact same method! He spontaneously gave me the permission to release the basic routine with my name on it and now, more than three years later, I can publicly say that Tommaso is a real class act! Just below is the basic original routine that the both of us devised independently. Ordinary decks. No sleights. Different outcomes at each performance. It is inspired by Cameron Francis' Convergence.

2D ACAIN: Two decks of cards are introduced....

Three pre-folded cards are tipped from a card box and displayed as being a QH and two blank cards. The three cards are folded to conceal their faces and arranged in a row on the table ready for the classic Find The Lady. Having mixed the positions of the three cards, the one that should be the QH is opened to reveal it is in fact one of the blanks. That’s surprise no. 1. Surprise no. 2 comes when the other two cards are unfolded to reveal they are both blanks as well! The QH has completely disappeared. Surprise no. 3 is revealed when the QH is found folded inside the card box that has been...

INSTANT RE-SET! VERY EASY TO PERFORM!

Someone tries to find the queen amongst two jokers, but fails every time. You pocket the queen, and ask them to find the black and white joker... they fail again as... all three cards are queens!

Holding three face down jumbo(ish) sized playing cards you say, "These cards may look very large, but they aren't... it's just that I have very small hands." As you patter, you show the cards to be two jokers and... a queen.

You explain that they are to ignore the jokers and... try to follow the queen.

You now mix the three cards very quickly as you...

A compilation of three manuscripts Super Dupes, Odd Lifts, and Secret Subtractions.

• SUPER DUPES
  • I. Informal Formulations
  • Four Sleights
  • Forgatherers
  • Foreshortenings
  • Foursomes
  • Fortuities
  • Forethoughts
  • Fore-and-afts
  • II. Guiles and Deals
  • Part One: ALL HANDS ON DECK
  • Part Two: CHEATS' FEATS
  • Part Three: MIXED TRICKS
• ODD LIFTS
  • I. Pull-Up Lifts
  • II. Push Back Lifts
  • III. The Green Lift
  • IV. Undercover Lift
  • V. Artificial Double Lift
  • VI. Miscellaneous
• SECRET SUBTRACTION
  • I. Preliminaries
  • II. The Flourish Count Technique
  • III. Secret Subtraction
  • IV. Applications
  • Final Notes ...

This video has no spoken instructions. You get visual video instructions plus some captions.

This is a gimmick to visually change the middle card of a three card display.

1st edition 2016, length 6min 52s

This is a patter line used by Paul LePaul. It can be used in combination with a glide, second deal or double lift. Allan uses here a mechanical second.

runtime: 47s

A vintage collection of fine card effects for magicians of every skill level. If you've ever wished you could entertain an audience after dinner, or during a lull at a party or club, you'll soon be able to, once you've learned these easy-to-master tricks. Some of the most eye-popping effects in all of card magic are those performed with a borrowed deck. Most of the tricks described in this ebook fall into this category.

Here's a partial list of what's included:

• The Fifteen Cards Trick
• An Easy Card Location
• A Mind Reading Effect
• Long Distance Mind Reading
• The Seven and Eight Trick ...

Four lovely card effects put together by Peter Duffie.

4-SOME: Here's a simple and automatic, yet highly effective, way to get four of a kind using the Fulves "Gemini Twins" concept.

3-SOME: A matching effect where the spectator does all the work and finishes with Three of a Kind. Inspired by, but not using, Marty Kane's Status Quo-2 Principle.

THE HEAVY TEAM: A selected card lost in a packet is found by a randomly chosen Ace detective.

GHOST BUSTER: In effect, you show an Ace, Two, Three and Four of Spades. Each card passes from top to bottom and it is then discarded. When you reach...

Four strong card effects with little or no sleight of hand that practically work themselves. These are not the self working effects you learn from books from a public library; these are all strong, workable, crowd-pleasers!

"I will be using something from this booklet!" - Paul Hallas

"A great ebook, John!" - Kyle MacNeill

"All of these are good for audience involvement and there's lots of impossible magical stuff going on, it's a fun book." - fonda57 (Magic Café user)

"Overall, this is a nicely produced booklet with links to private Youtube performances which is a great service." - Felix Schellenberg

Effects included: ...

An uncanny demonstration of apparent thought-reading.

THREE SMASH HITS: You show a packet of cards (saying that it contains the four Queens) and leave it aside. You also show another packet of four cards and they are seen to be the four Queens. A spectator FREELY touches any card and this is revealed to be, say, the QC.

FIRST EFFECT: The QC is seen to be the only reversed card in the other packet.

SECOND EFFECT: This card has a red back, while the other three are blue-backed cards.

THIRD EFFECT: The three blue-backed cards are seen to have blank faces.

Easy to do. At the...

The routine is based on Frank Garcia's "Five-Card Stunner" but also on handlings by Ken de Courcy and Herb Rungay. It is perfect for stand-up performers (parlor or stage) with no table required. You show a black card (say the 9C) and four red cards. When the cards are fanned, there are only four and they are all red; the black card has vanished. You eliminate one red card and then you remove the missing black card from the pocket. Again the cards are shown and then fanned. There are three red cards; the black card vanishes for the second time. You eliminate another red card and remove the black...

These are all laugh getters, great ideas for zany card effects you will use to pep up your more serious routines. Easy to do, impromptu, and very effective. Devised by U.F. Grant, an expert at this sort of thing.

1st digital edition 2015, PDF 7 pages.

A flash back to 1987 and a "long lost" manuscript, seen by only ten: Jerry Andrus, David Britland, Jeff Busby, Dave Faulkner, David Harkey, Ed Marlo, Dan McArthy, Harvey Rosenthal, Jay Sankey and Mark Trudinger, made it's brief, and only appearance... then, it was gone!

So what is the 5th Corner? It's a splash of ideas and techniques with a single playing card and it's ripped corners. You are both "one ahead" and "two behind" at the SAME TIME. This charming but annoying attribute is what probably led to the stony silence heard by the author in 1987. Can YOU make head-way with this strange and bizarre single-card oddity? Why not give...

Three playing cards vanish and then reappear in your pocket.

Here is a treat for serious card lovers. A gimmicked version of the amazing 'hallucination' plot along with 5 further non-gimmicked handlings. Ed was always thorough, and here it shows in style.

In effect, three spectators each look at the top card of the deck, one at a time. The performer comments about how people often have problems recalling details, and how various descriptions of the same event can vary dramatically. He offers to prove his point.

• Climax 1: The spectators each name their cards and they are ALL DIFFERENT! ...

Automatic Gambler
Created in October 2000 (along with Klectors that is elsewhere in this book) as an impromptu performance piece for the International Magic convention in December of that year. You demonstrate how to stack 4 Aces for a four-handed game. Then, you drop the Aces face up on top of the deck and they instantly vanish. You immediately give the deck to a spectator who now deals, not 4 but 5 hands this time. The face up Aces fall to his hand!

Satanic Writes
STAGE 1 – THE IMPOSSIBLE
You give out a diary to spectator 'A' for close examination. There are playing cards entered throughout...

All routines in this ebook are card effects and can be performed with a regular deck of cards. Only for one effect will you need an additional regular card. Five effects are totally impromptu and can be performed with a borrowed pack of cards.

"The name Michal Kociolek may be an unfamiliar one to you, but I have been aware of Michal's work for some time now and have been impressed with the clever and direct approach that he applies to his card magic. This book contains eight fully developed routines in which Michal takes some classic plots and principles and expands the possibilities. There...

84 card tricks with an explanation of the general principles of sleight of hand using ordinary cards.

1. The All-Important "Pass"
2. Deceptive Shuffles
3. Forcing A Card
4. The "Long Card"
5. The Divining Card
6. The Bootlegged Card
7. To Place A Card
8. To Slip A Card
9. To Carry Away A Card
10. The Congress Of Court Cards
11. To Discover The Card Which Is Drawn, By The Throw Of A Dice
12. The Guessed Card
13. The Recruit Trick
14. To Tell The Card That May Be Noted
15. To Separate The Two Colors Of A Pack Of Cards By One Cut
16. The "Spelling Bee" Trick
17. The "Alternate Card" Trick
18. To Name Any Number Of Cards In Succession Without...

Here's a compendium of 13 of Bob Hummer's unique, mind-blowing stunts for magicians and mentalists. A baker's dozen mentalism and magic effects using cards and coins. Each one seems utterly impossible, yet they work every time.

CONTENTS

• Foreword (B. W. McCarron)
• Introduction (Martin Gardner)
• PART I. HALF A DOZEN HUMMERS
• 1. The Magic Separation
• 2. Face-Up Prediction
• 3. Lite-Ning Addition
• 4. Two Card Transpo
• 5. Two Card Location
• 6. Card and Ribbon
• PART II. SIX MORE HUMMERS
• 7. The Four G-Men
• 8. The Card on the Window Pane
• 9. Double Thought
• 10. A Rare Coin Stunt
• 11. A Possible...

This is Ken's take on R.M. Jamison's 'Yogi Tells' effect from The Phoenix. Someone thinks of one of four cards of the same value of different suits. After two brief shuffles, you spell "Y-O-G-I" three times discarding the card on the last letter, and the card that remains is the one the spectator chose. In Ken's version the spectator thought of card magically flys into the pocket of the performer.

1st edition 1984, 8 pages; PDF 9 pages.

Ken de Courcy's no gimmick version of Scalbert's "The Mystery of the Seventh Card".

The perfect telephone test to present under challenge conditions. No Feke's. No Gimmicks. Yet the medium at the other end of the phone unerringly names the thought of card.

Scalbert's "Mystery of the Seventh Card", sold many years ago, was a commercial principle applied to the transmission of a card to an assistant playing the role of a medium, waiting on the end of a telephone. The distinct novelty at the time was the fact that all communication with the medium was done by a spectator. The secret was an...

From the FOREWORD

This work compares the contents of Jean Hugard's Encyclopedia of Card Tricks, Encyclopedia of Self-Working Card Tricks, and The Second Encyclopedia of Card Tricks by Glenn G. Gravatt, to see which effects and discussions were kept, altered, or deleted by Hugard. It will also identify those effects added by Hugard.

1st edition 2020, PDF 19 pages.

35 new routines totally impromptu, with no set-ups or difficult sleight of hand used, and all the routines require just a regular deck of cards and all of them are very easy to do.

Contributors: Jack Avis, Gene Castillon, Aldo Colombini, Peter Duffie, Karl Fulves, Mike Gancia, Paul Gordon, Marty Kane, Ryan Matney, Werner Miller, Reinhard Müller, Robin Robertson, Roy Walton.

1st edition 2007; 24 pages

This is an ebook of card effects for the magician who's looking for strong impromptu card magic. It contains twenty-five new routines with just a regular deck of cards and as mentioned before, strictly impromptu.

Contributors: John Bragoli, Stephen Clark, Aldo Colombini, Tom Daugherty, Ken de Courcy, Paul Gordon, Tom Hubbard, Joe Hustler, Stewart James, Kinos, Paul Marcus, Max Maven, Peter Rees, Joe Riding, John Yeager.

1st edition 2008; 18 pages

Packet tricks performed with regular cards! Packet Tricks are always popular. Using only a few cards you can perform very strong, baffling, visual magic. Here you have ten packet tricks from the world's top 'packet trick' experts.

Contents:

• JAPANESE ACES (Shigeo Futagawa): A real fooler where you and the spectator mix the Aces three times (the last one face up and face down) but the Aces always separate!
• POOR MAN'S MONTE (Richard Vollmer): A fun-to-watch-fun-to-do Monte type routine using only four regular cards!
• AN AMBITIOUS CLASSIC (Larry Jennings): The A, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Clubs perform an ambitious routine...

Transpositions are a staple in magic. The basic effect is simple: two objects switch places. That is it. What David has done in this eBook is that he has come up with five different ways to accomplish the transposition of selected playing cards.

The methods range from super easy to...well...not hard but not as super easy as some of the others. Some of the methods are totally impromptu, while others require a small amount of setup.

Those of you who are familiar with David's work already know that he does not like difficult sleights or overly complicated methods. So, you will not find any...

In this vintage and somewhat wacky video, Randy Wakeman demonstrates and explains in great detail his work with "Small Packet Ambitious," "The Visitor," the Rainbow Deck, Tom Gagnon's Impromptu Haunted Deck, Gagnon's "LBD Aces," and much, much more.

Miscellaneous mayhem by Simon Lovell is also included. And yes, although this isn't exactly "Team America" . . . puppets are involved.

length 1 hour