Jon Racherbaumer

• Publisher's Note
• I
  • Introduction
  • Marlo's Personal Annotation
  • Marlo's Variation Of The Zarrow Shuffle
  • MARLO In IBIDEM (1956-1969)
• II
  • Introduction
  • Marlo's Personal Annotation
  • The Easy Way: A Bottom Deal For The Millions
  • Two Memory Bits
  • Mental lie
  • Slop Shuffle Or Triumph?
  • Whispering Snitch

1st edition 1995, 50 pages; 1st digital edition 2020, PDF 50 pages.

• Introduction
• Marlo's Routine For Abbott's Chinese Coins
• Cursory Commentary On Close-Up Fantasies Books 1 & 2 By Paul Harris (1980)
• Bombshell Twins
• LSDM Aces
• LSDR Aces
• Patter For The "Ropes Of India"
• Clipper Passage
• Deuce Sandwich Ideas
• Better Than Best Lie Speller
• Simplex Lie Speller
• Complex Simplex Lie Speller
• Whose Oil And Water?
• Million Dollar Card Secrets By Frank Garcia

1st edition 1994, 50 pages; 1st digital edition 2020, PDF 55 pages.

• A Decade Later
• Publisher's Notes
• Round-Trip Travellers
• Student's Exchange
• Marlo Card-To-Pocket Items In Print
• Detached Collectors
• Table Side Manners
• Future Trap
• Olram Cunningly Catches A Card
• The 1003-1006 Aces
• An Apparitional Bit Of Nonsense
• On The Spread Cull

1st edition 1983, 2nd edition 1994, 50 pages; 1st digital edition 2020, PDF 52 pages.

The Ascanio Spread is a beautiful false display move, generally used to display 4 cards and hide a fifth one.

From the Introduction:

The Ascanio Spread immigrated to this country from Amsterdam. Del Cartier, Herb Zarrow, Mike Rogers, and Pete Biro were instrumental in bringing this technique to America. In fact, Del Cartier is a close personal friend of Ascanio and was the go-between in obtaining the original Ascanio manuscript for Mike Rogers, who in turn passed it on to me.

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• To Begin
  • Racherbaumer Variation
  • Some Comments On The Mechanics Of The...

• INTRODUCTION
• THE EXEMPLAR THE BLUFF PASS
• THE "BLUFF" PASS AND PALM
• SPIN-OFFS
  • TOMMY TUCKER'S BLUFF PASS
  • FAKE OR BLUFF PASS.
  • LE PAUL'S PASS
  • TRACKING ATTENTION
  • THE BLUFF FORCE / Andrew Galloway
  • BLUFF BOTTOM PLACEMENT / Edward Marlo
  • NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED / Edward Marlo
  • BLUFF-BLUFF PASS / Roger Klause
  • THE MARLO-THOMPSON BLUFF PASS
  • THE BLUFF CUT / Edward Marlo
  • BLUFF CENTER DEAL
  • BLUFF SHIFT / Bob Vesser
• VERBAL BLUFFING
  • PUT / R. Paul Wilson
  • BLUFF ACE ASSEMBLY / Edward Marlo
  • TWO-TIMING BLUFF ACE ASSEMBLY / Edward Marlo
• BLUFFERY TRICKS
  • BLUFF SANDWICH / Edward Marlo
  • REPEAT...

An exploration of the Hotel Trick, aka "A Night on the Town". A trick with a good plot is half the battle. This one has an interesting plot that can be styled and modified to fit your needs. Sleight-less and sleight-of-hand versions are being taught.

Jon was introduced to this trick by Persi Diaconis in the 1970s. In this ebook he has traced it back to its roots, and forward to modern variations and spin-offs.

The core effect:

Two Queens and four Kings are shown. The Queens are tabled face down next to each other. Two Kings are added onto each Queen to form two three-card packets. After...

"It is one of the very best tricks which can be done for close-up work." - Hugard and Braue from Show Stoppers With Cards

The Dunbury Delusion has an illustrious pedigree that has been up, down, and all around the magic scene for at least 100 years. Charlie Miller's method that was published in Expert Card Technique in 1940, more or less branded his name on it, but seven year earlier Victor Farelli published a modified version ("The Partagas Sell") in Farelli's Card Magic. He did not claim paternity but credited a Spanish magician named Partagas who apparently taught him the trick in 1908.

A selection "lost" in a deck is successfully found by using three...

The purpose of this compilation is to incentivize and "tickle" students to reexamine the Mene-Tekel deck and reconsider its possibilities. This has been done before and as recently as 2003 when Chris Wardle (via Paul Hallas) published a 27 page booklet titled Investigating the Mene-Tekel Deck (Magic's Forgotten Trick Deck).

...

We begin with Ed Marlo's groundbreaking addition of what he called the Roughed Mene-Tekel. We end with ends with David Britland's clever routines. In between there the other contributions are meant to provide further context and stimulation - enough to tickle anyone's fancy. At least that's the presumptive impulse that led to its creation.

• Marlo...

Eight select bits of rascality from Harry the Hat.

From the Introduction:

When Harry Anderson lived in New Orleans, we regularly discussed tricks, scams, and what Harry liked to call "throwaways that are keepers." These are tricks that symbolically serve the same purpose as Mardi Gras beads and doubloons tossed from floats during carnival season.

The following 8 things in this booklet are stunts and tricks Harry performed in his inimitable, fast-and-loose way when he held court in barrooms, poolrooms, or at his night club called Oswald's. In the right time and place they are worth knowing...

A survey of the seven-card assembly.

This ebook is a survey of the Seven-Card Assembly, a subcategory of Ace Assembly. Its name due to the number (7) of principal cards used, which makes it different from other Ace Assemblies. Standard versions use sixteen cards - four Aces and twelve X-cards - and when the preliminary layout is made, the Aces are dealt into a T-formation and three X-cards are placed onto each Ace. In a Seven-Card Assembly three X-cards are added onto only three of the Aces. The Leader Ace lies alone. This reduces the duration it takes to set the stage. Then the four Aces...

This manuscript is an exploration of the origin and evolution of one of the most dependable, commercial, and semiautomatic card tricks extant. Even its name is unusual and memorable - "Further Than That"

• INTRODUCTION
• FURTHER THAN THAT / Stewart James
• FURTHER THAN FURTHER THAN THAT / Harry Lorayne
• FURTHER THAN THAT / J. W. Sarles
• A LITTLE FURTHER / Darwin Ortiz
• THREE-DIMENSIONAL FURTHER THAN THAT / Cushing Strout
• STROUT FELLOW / Allan Slaight
• A Poker Demonstration
• A POYGRAPHICAL POLLOOZA / Jon Racherbaumer
• TAKING IT TOO FAR?
• MUCH FURTHER THAN THAT / Al Thatcher
• TAKING FURTHER THAN THAT TOO FAR / Jon Racherbaumer
• THIS...

• A Few Words Before You Begin
• Introduction
  • An Inauspicious Beginning
  • Origin Story: The Seed
  • The Row of Ten Cards (S. W. Erdnase)
  • About the Supposed Operative Principle
  • Ziska's Incomprehensible Card Effect
  • Incomprehensible Divination (Hilliard)
  • Who Was Ziska?
• A Morphing Begins
  • That Number Down (Doc Miller)
  • The Traveling Card (Jack Miller)
  • A Lazy Man Does a Card Trick (Al Koran)
  • Lazy Man's Card Trick (Harry Lorayne)
• The Plot Resurfaces...

Explorations, examples, and routines using equivoque.

Hobson's Choice: the choice of taking either what is offered or nothing else; the absence of choice. [after Thomas Hobson (1544-1631) of Cambridge, England, who rented horses and gave only one choice, that of the horse nearest the stable door]

Elucidations of a classic card trick: The Biddle Trick

The basic plot is fairly straightforward: A card is selected and in the process of determining its identity it is winnowed down to five possibilities. Then, in a surprising act of differentiation, the selection disappears from this five–card packet and reappears elsewhere. In most cases, the selection ends up face up in the middle of a spread deck. This trick has been variously named but ultimately it was christened "The Biddle Trick", named after Elmer Biddle who published the trick in Genii magazine in 1947. It marks the first appearance of the well-known...

The magic scene in the Seventies was a blooming, buzzing place, atwitter with contentiousness and creativity. Close-up magic, particularly with...

In its antecedent form this move appeared...

"Tosheroon" is an odd but memorable name. It sounds amusing and somewhat incantatory - especially for a card trick. Bob Driebeck, who dubbed it, knew that the word was Cockney slang for a half-crown, which is also the type of coin he used to perform this offbeat card trick.

The basic effect is a transformation done with an impediment in place - the impediment or obstruction in this case is a coin, which is placed onto the face of the card that eventually changes.

Effect: A card is selected and lost in the deck. Then a borrowed coin is marked and placed onto the face...

I must confess that my initial reaction to the Fingerprint Trick was tepid. There was no tension or conflict and it came off as being a glorified location trick. But one aspect interested me. It violated one of magic's cardinal rules - namely, never tell an audience what you are going to do before you do it. And, worse, in this case the performer divulges how he plans do it. Every presentation explains how the trick ostensibly works: The selection is found by detecting the thumbprint left on it. This is a plausible explanation, but as the trick unfolds, this casual explanation...

Here is the basic approach or plot: The way the performer learns the identity of a freely selected card is apparently due to enlisting the assistance of another playing card (usually a Queen), which whispers the name of the selection to the magician. The magician then acts as the Queen's proxy...