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Jon Racherbaumer

Jon Racherbaumer

(22nd January 1940 - )

Born in Oak Park, Illinois, under the sign of Aquarius. His early years were spent in Elmhurst, Illinois (Harlan Tarbell's hometown), a western suburb of Chicago. His interest in magic was sparked by seeing Dr. Tarbell perform in 1950. Soon thereafter, he received his first magic book, Tarbell Course in Magic - Volume 1, on his eleventh birthday. After discovering that Dr. Tarbell had donated his entire course to the local library, Jon spent many hours diligently studying each volume along with other magic books in the library.

Jon joined the Mazda Mystics Club (Juniors) in 1953, a club started by Russell Shaw and his wife in Oak Park, Illinois. Meetings were held in the basement of the Mazda Magic Shop. He maintained his interest throughout his schooling and thereafter when he moved to New Orleans in 1963. The Big Easy, home of the Mardi Gras, jazz music, and voodoo, is often called the Dream State, an ideal place for all things magical to ferment. From 1957 to 1965, Jon attended four universities and worked at various jobs: radio programmer, disk-jockey, promotion man, salesman, restaurant manager, male model, tree-trimmer, blackjack dealer, construction worker, warehouseman, program consultant (voluntary health agency), institutional house-father, social worker, gym instructor, bartender, ambulance driver (at a race track), and finally he went to work for Eastern Airlines from 1965-1990 as an airlines business person.

He eventually joined the IBM and the SAM in 1966, is a member of the Order of Merlin, and is a Lifetime Member of the Magic Castle in Hollywood, California. He is currently the Associate Editor of Richard Kaufman's Genii magazine. Prior to accepting this post, he contributed to numerous other magazines.

Jon's mentors were Ed Marlo and Eddie Fields.

His other interests are: body-building, literature, book-collecting, martial arts, philosophy, poetry, film, theater (theory), cosmology, painting, and mathematical recreations.

website: www.JonRacherbaumer.com

Coauthors: Edward Marlo, Norm Osborn, Steve Reynolds, Robert Walker

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Jon Racherbaumer
Facsimile 1 (used) by Jon Racherbaumer

A letter-sized booklet with glue binding in excellent condition. For the content see the digital edition.

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Jon Racherbaumer
Facsimile 2 (used) by Jon Racherbaumer

A letter-sized booklet with glue binding in excellent condition. For the content see the digital edition.

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Jon Racherbaumer
On the Tabled Reverse by Jon Racherbaumer

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,...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Virtual Visitations by Jon Racherbaumer

Diving into double-back transits.

  • Jennings' Visitor: The spectator selects a card and the performer places it between two black Queens. The card becomes restless and upon command leaves the black Queens and is found face-up between two red Queens. Upon command, once again the card jumps from the red Queens back between the black Queens. The selected card may be initialed.
  • The Visitor Sans Deck / Dave Solomon: Four Kings and four Jacks are removed from the deck. The Kings and Jacks are separated into two fours of a kind and are placed as two packets on the table. A spot card is selected from the...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Dreamwork 2 by Jon Racherbaumer

This short compilation follows on the heels of another compilation titled Dreamwork. Both relate to Bob Hummer's "The Midreader's Dream." Bob Hummer introduced to the magic world many interesting principles and effects. One of the first to make a splash was introduced in 1952. The dreamy dealer ad seemed too good to be true: A spectator merely thinks of a card and then performs a few, unseen dealing procedures with a deck of cards. The magician, whose back was turned throughout these actions, turns and faces the spectator. He takes the deck, briefly scans the cards, and consults a "dream book." He then names...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Harry Anderson's Square Dancing by Jon Racherbaumer

A selective history of magic squares and routines and performances which are somewhat unusual and different from the regular magic square presentation of 'give me a number and I write down a magic square of that number'.

  • Brother Can You Paradigm? (Jon Racherbaumer)
  • Harried History of the Magic Square
    • B.A. (Before Annemann)
    • 1930 – Present
    • Wise-Guy Square
  • Kick-Starters
    • Okey-Sidokey
    • Charlier Shuffle
  • Miscellaneous Matrix Trix
    • Phoning Marrakech
    • Squaring the Deal
    • Upside Down
    • Cool Things about the Magic Square
    • Harry Ending
  • References

1st edition 2008, PDF 31 pages....

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Jon Racherbaumer
Black Jackery by Jon Racherbaumer

Tricks that allude to the game of BlackJack.

  • Black Jack Kicker / Paul Gertner
  • Blackjacked! / Don Alan & Eddie Fields
  • Duck or Deal Blackjack / Nick Trost
  • Black Magic / Ron Ferris
  • Black Jack Versus Poker / Edward Marlo
  • The Almost Perfect Blackjack Hand / Dan Block

1st edition 2023, PDF 30 pages.

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Jon Racherbaumer
Analects and Analogues by Jon Racherbaumer

Ten card mysteries Annemann would have loved.

This book was part of a two-person three-hour lecture session given by Harry Anderson that Jon gave at a Daytona Magic Conference.

Excerpt from the foreword:

Anneman believed that the effect is the most important thing and, to paraphrase Vince Lombardi, the effect is the only thing.

Anneman believed, as deists believe in a god, that a magician must do something extraordinary with the ordinary…and what is demonstrated must also have no practical use or relevance in the real world. It is a demo, not an application of real power.

Anneman...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Devious Departures by Jon Racherbaumer

A deep dive into Elmsley's Point of Departure.

The original effect is the following. A card is chosen and placed face down on the table. The two black aces are then removed from the pack and with the utmost fairness, the chosen card is placed between them, and this sandwich is handed to a spectator to hold. On the magician's command, the chosen card vanishes and is found in the performer's pocket.

  • Point of Departure / Alex Elmsley
  • Card Vanish Supreme / Edward Marlo
  • A-E-I-O-U / Sam Schwarz
  • Last-Minute Departure / Jon Racherbaumer
  • Escapade / Max Maven
  • Between Your Points of Departure / Earl...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Rub-a-Dub Digest by Jon Racherbaumer

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. ...

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Jon Racherbaumer
All Backs: a select compendium by Jon Racherbaumer

The All Backs Motif is odd. For one thing, it casts a revealing light on we magician's claim (when it suits our purpose) that we use ordinary cards. That is our decks, which we prefer to borrow, consist of cards that have faces and backs on both sides. Therefore, if we show a deck that consists of all backs and faces we are admitting that such anomalies exist and the cards being used are probably gimmicked in some way. Why do this?

A better question may be - What motivated someone to create such an effect using this kind of deck? That "someone" was Dai Vernon and my guess is that he wanted to...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Dustbin Dossier 2 by Jon Racherbaumer

The contents of this series, for the most part, emphasize the history of effects and ideas. There are effects and methods in some of them, though.

  • Proem
  • About this Issue
  • Excerpts Taken from a Photocopy of a Letter Written from Ed Whitford to Edward Marlo
  • A Marlo Letter to Persi Diaconis
  • Racherbaumer Letter to Charlie Miller
  • Shall We Ask All The King's Horses and Men?
  • Correspondence Between Jon Racherbaumer and Stephen Minch Regarding the So-Called Hide-Out Move
  • Appendix: Paul Curry's "Out of this World"; a new version / Ed Whitford

1st edition 2014, PDF 30 pages....

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Jon Racherbaumer
Dustbin Dossier 1 by Jon Racherbaumer

The contents of this series, for the most part, emphasize the history of effects and ideas. There are effects and methods in some of them, though.

From the introduction:

Dustbin Dossier will service a distinct minority interested in examining documents (letters, notes, booklets, diaries, journals) in their original, "aboriginal" forms. Personal letters, for example, are a primary source of raw, unfiltered knowledge - seasoned with salt, not sugar. They are usually characterized by their spontaneous candor and unguarded subjectivity. After all, most of them were written for one person...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Mythopolis by Jon Racherbaumer

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...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Monte-Mazements by Jon Racherbaumer

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...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Minutia Memes 1 by Jon Racherbaumer

Regarding changes, sexual and otherwise.

This is an unusual one, but Jon Racherbaumer always weaves an interesting yarn meshing history with magic and card tricks with culture. In this short but nevertheless interesting ebook Jon starts out with a historic event that in the 1950s made huge waves. Today it would hardly make the news. In 1952 a man by the name of George William Jorgensen Jr. had a number of operations to change his sex and became Christine Jorgensen. Edward Marlo exploited this event and created a card trick called "Christine", and with Christine, he meant Christine Jorgensen. This is...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Twixt by Jon Racherbaumer

Reviving "Between the Palms" one of Alex Elmsley's most offbeat plots. This is sort of a "locked room" mystery with playing cards.

It is an offbeat plot because the implicit aspects of effect, particularly its climax, are not immediately understood or appreciated. Yet the effect still has an emotional impact. Compared to other card tricks being done in 1952 it was very different. (Perhaps its closest cousins may be Fred Braue's "The Prechosen Chosen Card" from The Gen (February 1962) or Brother John Hamman's "Signed Card.")

Effect: The performer removes a card from the deck and, without showing its face, places it between...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Mulling Over Mexican Joe by Jon Racherbaumer

'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...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Picnic Pocus by Jon Racherbaumer

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...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Mirroring Maximizing Miraskill by Jon Racherbaumer
"One of the greatest card tricks ever invented." - George Anderson

"It fooled the hell out of me!" - Ted Annemann

"Without any possible doubt, Stewart James' 'Miraskill' is one of the greatest self-working card effects to have appeared in print. Apart from its own value, it is the ideal prelude to 'Out of this World'." - Peter Warlock

Miraskill came into being in 1935 when Stewart James self-marketed it. According to him, only one copy was sold. But it leaked out and Dr. Jacob Daley demonstrated it to Ted Annemann, who eventually published it in the Jinx, which was the starting point for much thought and commentary by other clever minds. ...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Psi-V by Jon Racherbaumer

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
1st edition 2020, PDF 32 pages.
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Robert Walker & Jon Racherbaumer
Avatar by Robert Walker & Jon Racherbaumer

Robert Walker was a unicycling, high-school student. Looking five years younger than he was, he was a dyed-in-the-wool card guy tutored in Marlovian ways. He was also a precocious writer-creator, obsessed with false counts and packet tricks. He spent many hours "twisting the night away," taking voluminous notes, and developing new methods and approaches. His first mini-treatise dissected a marketed packet trick by Larry West ("Wild, Wild West") which he passed onto Jon Racherbaumer to publish. It became the second installment of the loose-leaf Avatar, printed on pink paper and unadorned by illustrations...

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Jon Racherbaumer
All That Jazz by Jon Racherbaumer

Jazz Aces was inauspiciously introduced to the magic world in 1971 when Peter Kane published Another Card Session. It was a fortuitous event because it appeared about the same time the Elmsley Count was gaining favor with magicians from coast to coast. Like weeds in an open field, packet tricks were also popping up everywhere. Furthermore, Kane's routine clarified the transposition aspects of basic Ace Assemblies. Using only 8 principal "players" (cards), his action procedure was simple and direct. Best of all, the final transposition was squeaky clean. As a result it did not take long for Jazz...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Trix Fixes by Jon Racherbaumer
  • LEITMOTIFS
    • Copycat Cards
    • Rashomonian Universal Card
    • Counting a Conclave
  • LOCUS POCUS
    • Mine Finds Yours
    • A Narrow Margin
    • Bubkus Divination
    • No-Frills Invisible Toss
  • PUZZLETS
    • Changling Sandwich
    • Another Challenge
    • Easy O. Henry
    • Recliner Mind Reader
    • Either-Oracle
1st edition 2020, PDF 39 pages.
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Jon Racherbaumer
May The Flop Be With You by Jon Racherbaumer

Remixing the Gardner-Marlo poker deal - its history and histrionics.

  • Introduction
  • How To Study This Manuscript
  • An Effective Poker Deal / Jean Hugard
  • Gardner-Marlo Poker Deal / Martin Gardner, Edward Marlo
  • The Surprised Gambler / Martin Gardner
  • Can You Deal A Good Poker Hand? / Jean Hugard
  • Meyer Poker Deal / Orville Meyer
  • The Lorayne Poker Deal / Harry Lorayne
  • Of Course I Can Deal A Good Poker Hand! / Edward Marlo
  • Solomon Meets Gardner-Marlo / Dave Solomon
  • The Ultimate Gardner-Marlo/ Steve Mayhew, Jack Carpenter
  • Marlo/Gardner/Britland Poker Deal
  • Riverboat Poker / John Bannon
  • Addendum: Duts / Edward Marlo

1st edition 2020, PDF 50 pages....

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Jon Racherbaumer
Sunken by Jon Racherbaumer

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...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Cull-Mination by Jon Racherbaumer

Culling (cards) is not a particularly fashionable technique. During the past forty years, card magicians started to pay closer attention to various ideas and techniques, especially those having broad application. In this treatise three types of culls will be examined:

  1. Desired cards are secretly culled during the logical and natural course of an effect.
  2. Free selections are controlled (culled) to desired positions during a visible procedure that looks fair and above board.
  3. A cull done during another fair procedure that results in separating the four suits in Ace to King order.
Contents: ...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Elevation Ovations by Jon Racherbaumer

Although Marlo is generally credited with the Elevator plot, analysis of the action steps taken in the Four Burglars, Jacob's Ladder, and Marlo's Penetration exhibit procedural similarities and could be presented as "elevating tricks" if accompanying patter expressed the "elevator" analogy. As far as the "elevator" trope is concerned, we can credit Bill Simon for naming rights.

  • Part One: The Burglazing Beginning
    • Introduction
    • Gibson Puts Perps On Parade
    • Rising Crime / Daryl Martinez
    • Rising Robbers / Jon Racherbaumer
    • Four Burglas / Jerry Mentzer
    • Mystery Of The Penthouse / Nick Trost
    • Burglar Trick / Nick...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Facsimile 3 by Jon Racherbaumer

This issue of Facsimile includes the complete contents of the first two (and only) issues of Jon Racherbaumer's periodical Marlophile. Jon has reformatted Marlophile, and added some additional routines.

  • 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.

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Jon Racherbaumer
Facsimile 2 by Jon Racherbaumer
  • 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.

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Jon Racherbaumer
Facsimile 1 by Jon Racherbaumer
  • 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.

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Jon Racherbaumer
The Ascanio Spread by Jon Racherbaumer

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...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Bluffery by Jon Racherbaumer

Jon explores the bluff pass and its spin-offs.

  • 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...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Grand Hotel by Jon Racherbaumer

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...

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

From the Foreword:

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.

Basic Plot:

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

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Jon Racherbaumer
Tickling Tekel by Jon Racherbaumer

From the Introduction:

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...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Fifth-Business Monkey Business by Jon Racherbaumer

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...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Speeding Bullets by Jon Racherbaumer

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...

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Jon Racherbaumer
Further More by Jon Racherbaumer

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...
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Jon Racherbaumer
Lazing: Lazy Man's Card Trick by Jon Racherbaumer

This compilation, like my others, my goal is to discover the "bits and pieces" and in this particular case, to partially answer how and why The Lazy Man's Card Trick came into being?

  • 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...
★★★★ $15
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