Jon Racherbaumer products: page 2

Offbeat alternatives of the Three-Card Motif

This compilation makes a distinction between the well-known Three-Card Monte wagering game, and motifs using three principal cards in different ways. All of the motifs challenge a spectator's ability to follow the actions to keep track of certain principal cards as they are physically moved around.

In some of the motifs, the principal cards are moved by the spectator while the performer's back is turned. Then, sight unseen, the performer is able to ascertain the location of a card previously designated as the "money card."

In other motifs...

'Mexican Joe' refers to a specially crimped card or deck, one that is crimped at diagonal corners in opposite directions.

The first person to publish anything on this crimp was Victor Farelli when he published Farelli's Card Magic. Several years passed before another mention is made. This time it was explained in Dai Vernon's More Inner Secrets of Card Magic. Racherbaumer collects a number of routines and ideas with this crimp. In so doing he weaves his way through some interesting nooks and crannies of card magic history.

• Prologue
• Introduction
• Origins
• The Double Crimp
• Mexican Joe's Crimp: Dai Vernon
• Applying The Work
• Marlo Dead...

[Note: Despite all the rumors the cover does not show Jon in his younger years.]

This is an ebook about moves, card moves to be precise. If you are already familiar with the basics of card magic then you will find here a lot of advanced moves and concepts to significantly improve your magic. If you are an experienced veteran of card magic you will probably still find some moves you are unfamiliar with. It is also a great reference ebook to have in case you run one day into any of these moves. The moves are described in text and photos with references and sources in the usually meticulous Racherbaumer style.

• Adding To Vernon (Jon Racherbaumer)
• The Altman Trap (Art...

Unpacking the Smith Myth and the Rashomon Concept.

This collection of tricks focuses on a similar motif because they fit the precise definition of that word and, in each case, the goal is to show what unifies and specifically defines each one. I'm also using the term "curate," because I sifted through lots of material so readers can compare and analyze everything. I consider this to be a contextualizing exercise that reveals the motif's history and pinpoints its rightful place in the Creative Continuum.

The two motifs compiled here are the Smith Myth and what's popularly known as the Rashomon...

The oil and water effect is a classic of card magic, some love it, some hate it. If one has ever seen Rene Lavand do it slow motion with one hand you probably love it. But there is only one Rene Lavand. Some say the effect of red and black cards separating is rather weak, until Roy Walton added a kicker in 1969 where half the cards change to Queens. Dave Bendix tweaked Walton’s handling. Bob Stencil and Terry LaGerold devised a narrative that logically excused the surprise appearance of the Queens. Jon Racherbaumer and Jeff Busby independently expanded the kicker to not only change half the cards but...

There is something incurably viral about this curious card problem. Does anyone know? What's so irresistible about displacing, displaying, counting, spreading, mixing, re-mixing, un-mixing red and black cards? What's the allure? What's the incentive? Yet, despite all cease-and-desist entreaties, methods keep popping up, including the ones in this compact manuscript.

The Ten Phase routine described in this ebook combines ideas and handlings by Hideo Kato, Dave Solomon, and Edward Marlo. You can figuratively use the Oil and Water patter theme, referring to red cards as "water" and black cards as "oil," but some...

"The Filet Mignon of Ace Assemblies." - Ed Marlo

Olram Aces is a tribute to the genius of Edward Marlo which shows how Marlo's lifetime work steadily influenced Jon.

The presentation makes maximum use of the gaffs and the Aces in the non-leader packets disappear in different ways that are successively stronger. It has been audience-tested on laypersons and magicians.

In typical Racherbaumer style you also get a history on the Ace Assembly plot starting with The Discoverie of Witchcraft.

1st edition 2009; 10 pages.

A finessed examination of a unique technique.

This manuscript is about a basic card technique that is sui generis, although it remains a limited application. Nevertheless, it is worth knowing because it's been cleverly used to perform one of the best short versions of "Triumph" extant.

The basic move permits you to secretly reverse a card while the deck is tabled and simultaneously riffle shuffled. This manuscript also reveals the how, when and who worked on it. The first Tabled Reverse appeared in Marlo's Off the Top in 1945, credited to Russell Barnhart. Therein it was sparsely explained,...

• A WHIM-WHAM WARM-UP: Warmed Over Rhetoric
• KINDS OF PERMUTATIONS
• FIRST PERMUTATION: HUMMA-HUMMA-HUMMER
• SECOND PERMUTATION
• PERMUTATION THREE: VALUE-SUIT, SUIT-VALUE (Jon Racherbaumer)
• PERMUTATION FOUR: WHY IS THIS ODD CARD SO QUEER? (Jon Racherbaumer)
• PEMUTATION FIVE: THE LAST GAME (David Britland)
• PERMUTATION SIX: BILE AND BLOOD (Jon Racherbaumer)
• PERMUTATION SEVEN: PURIST CARD PUZZLE (Edward Marlo)
• PERMUTATION EIGHT: MR. FOGG TRACKED DOWN (Steve Reynolds)

1st edition 2013, 49 pages.

Jon loves to collect, compare, and organize tricks into themes and plots. This is his latest work on the piano trick.

WHAT IS THE PIANO TRICK?

A spectator places his hands palm down on the table in the same way a pianist places his hands on a keyboard. Then pairs of cards are placed between the spectator's fingers to set the stage. These pairs are then fairly removed to form two equal piles. An extra or "odd" card is added to one of the piles. Then, without any further movements or fanfare, the "odd" card inexplicably travels to the other pile.

• Introduction
• At The Beginning
• Thoughts...

This manuscript is about one trick that incorporates a seminal sorting procedure now given the name Belcho's Disbursive Deal. Over the years the trick eventually morphed into an organized compilation that shares the same identifiable title: "Poker Player's Picnic."

It begins with Vernon Lux, an enterprising amateur who founded the International Society of Junior Magician in 1931 and began a magazine called The Dragon in 1932. Therein Oscar Weigle had a column called "Themes and Schemes" where he explained a trick called "The Million to One Trick." (Later it was changed to "Belchou's Aces.") It's unclear...

The presentations in this manuscript are homage to the nonmanipulative, off-the-cuff approach taken by Chan Canasta.

The material is stuff Jon has published elsewhere, mostly piecemeal. The thrust of the ebook, though, is how these effects are PRESENTED in a CANASTA WAY. This then is its organizing principle. It is basically designed to demonstrate Canasta's approach. The material is easy and commercial.

• INTRODUCTION
• KISS MET
• OPTICUNNING CUTTING
• SOMATIQUE
• TACITRIX
• VOCALYSIS
• THE JOKER EATS YOUR MIND
• UNTOUCHABLY YOURS

1st edition 2016, 25 pages.

As a plot, Cards Across is fairly simple and direct. It's a transition effect where a number of cards - usually three - magically travel from one packet to another. There are methods that use gimmicked cards, others use purely sleight-of-hand.

This manuscript is an exploration of subtle methods based on Stewart James' "Pockethereal." Its selling point is that there are no switches or exchanges. The only sleight of hand is the false counts. This put it in a class by itself.

• INTRODUCTION
• POCKETHEREAL (Stewart James)
• POCKETHEREAL, MINUS POCKETS (Bert Fenn)
• POCKETHEREAL MINUS POCKETS (Edward Marlo)
• CLARIFIED PACKETHEREAL...

Henry Hardin's plot has been around for 107 years and his initial three methods are explained in The Art of Magic (1909). Card tricks of this kind were atypical when Hardin devised his trick. During his time, spectators physically picked cards. They seldom, if ever, mentally selected them. Because only five cards are used in "The Princess Card Trick," Hardin strengthened the challenge by finding the mental selection by tactile means while the five "possibilities" were in his pocket.

This is how the his trick appeared to audiences: Five cards are shown to a spectator who is asked to think of one of them....

A retrospective look at Dai Vernon's Five-Card Mental Force.

• Introduction
• The Prototypal Version From Early Vernon
• A Woolgather's Aside
• My Skirmish with the Five-Card Mental Force
• 30 Years Passed
• Five Card Mental Farce / David Acer
• Max on Five-Card Mental Force / Max Maven
• Outtings
• Rescuing the Five-Card Mental Force / Allan Slaight
• The Ultra Effect / Paul Rylander
• Dai-Cipher / Phil Goldstein
• I Have It / Edward Marlo
• Psyboards / Tom Frame
• Indisputably Predictable / Jon Racherbaumer
• Post Mortem

The 'Real-Gone Aces' problem is a side branch of the classic four Ace trick. In the classic you place four aces on the table, then put three indifferent cards on each ace, and magically all aces end up in the same pile. In the 'Real-Gone Aces' plot which was originated by Marlo, after correspondence with Neal Elias, three aces vanish to join an isolated leader ace.

If this plot appeals to you then you will learn a good number of variations on it in this ebook. And I am sure, if you are the kind of guy or gal who enjoys reading such detail filled descriptions of finesses and fine points, then...

This manuscript is a compilation of methods in order to identify and track its history. In the process, it hopes to show how a given trick evolves, sometimes devolves, and ultimately reflects the periods of time this process has occurred.

The trick in this case is the "Red-Hot Mama" or "The Chicago Opener," a presentation that has been around for almost 60 years and has been a useful, dependable and enduring workhorse.

In its basic form it is an effect where a card is selected. Its back changes color and is set aside. A second card is selected, lost in the deck, and the initial selection...

Effect: Four blue-back cards are shown. One at a time each card - the Ace, Two, Three, and Four of Diamonds - turn face up. Their backs then change to red and then one at a time the backs change back to blue. Finally, the cards change to four Fours of Diamonds.

1st edition 1975 in Paul Diamond Presents Magical Masterpieces #2, updated 2018, PDF 15 pages.

ABOUT RUB-A-DUB: The rhyme is of a type calling out otherwise respectable people for disrespectable actions, in this case, ogling naked ladies - the maids. The nonsense "Rub-a-dub-dub" develops a phonetic association of social disapprobation, analogous to "tsk-tsk," albeit of a more lascivious variety.

The Rub-a-Dub Move's inauspicious beginning began in 1909 at a time when, relatively speaking, magicians had a limited number of utilitarian sleights and techniques at their disposal. Besides, the Rub-a-Dub Move happened in the blink of an eye and was only an offbeat way to make a card disappear. ...

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...

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...

Racherbaumer, a man of words - sometimes strong words, sometimes exotic words, sometimes provocative words, sometimes strange words - but always thoughtful and worth reading, wrote a two year column in The Greater Son of the Bat Jr. journal (S.O.B.jr.). All 24 installments of this column are collected here. You will find a lot of Marlo-vian talk, good tricks and interesting articles. I was not a magician in the late 70s, so I cannot say how it was back then in the 'good old times', but reading Sticks and Stones allowed me to imagine how - I am sure - it must have been.

• EFFECTS ALPHABETICALLY ...

A treatise on how to determine a thought of card.

• Out of Sight - Out of Mind (Dai Vernon)
• Streamlined Discernment (Edward Marlo)
• Mental Discernment Improved (Ken Krenzel)
• Mental Selectivity (Charlie Miller)
• Far Out Of Sight (Bob King)
• No Questions Asked (Randy Wakeman)
• The Spectator Seems to Really Think of any Card (Bob Farmer)
• A Card That Lies = A Deck That Tells The Truth (Bob Farmer)
• Unambiguous Discernment (Edward Marlo)
• Fish-Fry For Two (Robert Baxter)
• Fish (Lewis Jones)
• The Discerning Mentalist (J. K. Hartman)
• Mental Schemental (J. K. Hartman)

1st edition 2011; 52 pages....

A deep dive into a key principle - the sunken key card.

• So It Begins ...
• Adding the Pips / Larsen - Wright
• Automatic Location / Oscar Weigle Jr.
• The Three Pile Trick / C. W. Jones
• The Twenty-Sixth Location
• The Triple Discovery / Charlie Miller - Jack McMillen
• Watching the Pitchman / Charlton Chute
• Improved Twenty-Sixth Location
• Middle Maze / Bruce Elliott
• The Twenty-Sixth Card Location - Using a Corner Short / George G. Kaplan
• Koran's Miracle Card Stab / Al Koran
• A New Use for a One Dollar Bill / John Henry Grossman
• Buried Treasure / Alex Elmsley
• Shadowed / Alex Elmsley
• S-D Location / Dave Solomon - Steve Draun
• S-D Plus / Simon Aronson
• An Exploration...