Title	Elmsley Count (Ghost Count)
People	Alex Elmsley, Ellis Stanyon, Edward Victor, Eric de la Mare, Jack Avis, Dai Vernon
Year	1959
Source	30 Card Mysteries, The Four Card Trick, More Inner Secrets of Card Magic, The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley - Vol 1.
Description	To show four cards as four, hiding one of the four.
Details	Directly inspired by a count for less shown to him by Eric de la Mare, Alex Elmsley developed the technique in 1954 but it first saw print in 1959 as "The Ghost Count" as part of a marketed effect, "The Four Card Trick." It is believed that Jack Avis developed the fingertip handling described in Vernon's "More Inner Secrets of Card Magic" as part of his "Twisting the Aces" routine. While the underlying concepts employed in the Elmsley Count may be traced to Ellis Stanyon for the under-packet return of a card and Charles Jordan and/or Laurie Ireland for the Block Push-off, the developmental line would appear to include Ellis Stanyon (for the Stanyon Count), Edward Victor (for the EYE count) and, arguably, Charles Jordan for the Phantom Aces Displacement Count (commonly called the Jordan Count), independently reinvented by Norman Houghton and Francis Haxton. The history is long and complex but as this technique is the cornerstone to so many others, its origins are particularly important.
Researched by	Wesley James, Joseph Pecore
Category	move
Subcategory	cards