Marked & Gaffed

This was the advertisement booklet for Ritter's book Advantage Card Playing and Draw Poker. It describes the motivation of the book and shows some excerpts including four illustrations.

1st edition 1905, 9 pages; digital edition colorized.

The first part and majority of this book deals with marked cards. It shows numerous examples of how and where to mark various back designs popular during the early 20th century in the United States. The second part briefly describes sleight-of-hand for the card cheater such as second dealing, bottom dealing, shuffling, false cuts, and mechanical hold outs. Each technique is illustrated with a photo, which is quite remarkable for a book from that time. The third and final part deals with the mathematical odds of draw poker.

Some people believe that F. R. Ritter might be S. W. Erdnase, the unknown author...

NO sleight of hand - NO complicated tactics!

In this PDF Alexandre shares techniques and six bizarre mentalism effects with marked cards (plus a strong bonus routine), audience tested material he's been performing for many years such as ...

PAGANINI - The violin virtuoso fuels rumors of a pact with the Devil by demonstrating his amazing relationship with velocity using a deck of cards.

STALKER - A female participant chooses her actions, and a card, but in the end she can't avoid the "stalker's" confrontation.

SPIRITUAL TRACE - With an old deck of cards used for fortune telling, a...

This exclusive book has now been republished as an ebook. Encyclopaedic in scope, with notes on making, handling, pitching, and performing in a variety of situations.

Contents

• Handling the Svengali Deck
• Pitching the Svengali Deck
• About the Tricks
• Impromptu
• Almost Impromptu
• Multi-Method Classics
• Novelty Revelations
• Things going wrong, and sucker effects
• Apparatus Required
• Special Decks
• Publicity, Promotion, Spectacle
• Using sleights and moves
• Miscellaneous
• The Last Word

1st edition 1999, 181 pages.

This manuscript features six routines from Paul Voodini, all utilizing a marked deck. As well as fully explaining the routines, Paul also discusses many subtleties that allow the performer to use a marked deck with confidence and the 'tricks of the trade' that mean the spectators never suspect for a moment that there is anything 'funny' about the cards.

The routines included are:

The Keeper of Secrets. The performer is able to correctly divine a chosen card despite the spectator desperately trying to keep its identity a secret.

Thought Transfer. Performer and spectator work together...

"I must congratulate you on producing the most readable 'Reader' deck I have ever seen." - Billy McComb

"A bold yet deceptive marking system that reveals the cards as fast as you can glance at them. An absolute boon to the professional performer." - Larry Becker

"Your marking idea is brilliant. It is quite the cleverest idea that I have seen in a marked deck for magicians." - Jeff Busby

"It is the first marked deck I have seen that is practical for the performing magician, your deck indeed makes miracles with cards so very easy congratulations." - Marvin Roy

Ted Lesley of Germany devised the Working...

Here, Chris Wardle explores the use of long and short cards (Svengali Deck style) for mental magic presentations. Whilst initially he gives some background to the Svengali deck and how to make and handle one, some routines use variants on the deck and several don't use playing cards at all. There are thirteen routines from Chris plus some additional commentary and a bonus routine from publisher Paul Hallas. Chances are after reading this you'll not think of the Svengali deck in the same way again.

Since the appearance of this booklet (his third) Chris authored Magic For Everyone (2006) and...

Explanation of the Boris Wild Marked Deck + Explanation of the BW Memorized Deck + 5 incredible routines including "Miracle!" and "Pure Telepathy" as seen on French National television.

"The Boris Wild System is a marked deck for the 21st century. It's intelligent, unsuspecting, and it fooled me sooo bad! I love it!" - Joshua Jay

"For an easy and sure-fire way to read the back of any card in the deck, Boris' method is safe and unbeatable. I recommend it highly." - Aldo Colombini

"Boris Wild has created a genuine masterpiece with his marked deck. You can do effects with it that you simply cannot do with any...

From the introduction:

Most magicians have at some time or the other resorted to faked or trick decks to bring about some miracle or the other. And yet these same performers, who will pull out a Stripper or a Svengali deck at the drop of a pin shy away from a marked deck, presumably under the impression that everybody knows a Marked Deck.

That is, of course, a ridiculous notion. The truth of the matter is that not one spectator in a thousand can detect a good marked deck, and most of them are unaware of their very existence. For that matter, a number of demonstrations in our studios have...

Twenty-five pages of previously unpublished information on successful pitching – tips, ideas, and insights from highly experienced pitchmen. What to wear, details on the joint, and more. A valuable addition to the Don Driver Svengali DVD on pitching the Svengali and the Don Driver Interview.

1st edition 2009, PDF 25 pages.

The Comprehensive Guide to Making Money Pitching Svengali Decks

Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been made on selling the humble Svengali Deck and yet few people ever learned the inner secrets of how to pitch the deck successfully. This DVD fills that shortage.

Don Driver pitched for twenty-five years all over the country. He learned his pitch from S. David Walker, the Grand old Man of Svengali pitching who has been at it since the early 1940s. Mr. Walker learned from Mickey MacDougall, the creator of the Svengali pitch.

Explained in detail is a pitch that has been polished and...

This set consists of 52 gaffed cards with Bicycle backs. The cards are listed below and can also be seen in the image to the right. They come in a white tuck box that has a small window on one side.

• Ace of Spades with inverted black Bicycle back (2 cards)
• Ace of Clubs with inverted yellow Bicycle back (2 cards)
• Ace of Hearts with inverted red Bicycle back (2 cards)
• Ace of Diamonds with inverted blue Bicycle back (2 cards)
• King of Hearts - King of Spades horizontal split face, Ace of Clubs on the back (11 cards)
• King of Diamonds - King of Clubs horizontal split face, Ace of Clubs on...

You will receive four sets of 5 ESP cards (circle, cross, three wavy lines, square, star), a total of 20 cards. Two sets have a red Bicycle back and the other two sets have a blue Bicycle back. These cards were manufactured by USPCC on their standard air-cushion cardboard.

All cards are marked on the back in an easy to read way. A short glimpse is all you need to know which symbol it is. However the Bicycle back design wonderfully camouflages the markings if you do not know where to look. Wonderfully matches regular Bicycle cards allowing combinations of effects with ESP symbols and standard...

The Score is an ebook that teaches a special playing card marking system inspired by a concept probably as old as playing cards. The system has been re-thought and re-mastered by Daniel Madison with help from sleight of hand junkie Randall Freeman and a retired card cheat who wishes to remain anonymous.

The Score markings system teaches you how to mark any deck of cards that has a white border, such as standard Bicycle Rider backs, Mandolines and Bee Stingers - we'd list all of those decks here but there are far too many to mention!

The Score is a minimalistic system; two simple tiny marks...

Scott has been holding this close to the vest for more than a decade. A small part of his do-it-yourself marked deck system was published in his long out of print book "Never Miss a Trick," but in this manuscript Scott gives you the full meal deal, explaining the entire system. Along with instructions on how to make up your own decks (in just minutes!), Scott gives you memory hooks to make learning the system as quick and painless as possible. Then he gets into the routines--and what routines they are! Killer routines that will slaughter your audience! Stuff that seems absolutely impossible...

This is a sheet of custom made white rub-on transfer numbers, characters and symbols. This is exactly what you need to make several Ted Lesley Working Performer's Marked Decks - or other similar decks like the Boris Wild Marked Deck. (The cards you have to supply yourself.)

Please note that you do NOT acquire the right to make and sell Ted Lesley marked decks with these transfers. They are for personal use only.

This marking system is considered the very best by many professionals. It combines super easy and reliable reading of the markings - which is crucial for real world under pressure performances - with...

Ronald Haines, through his business Haines House of Cards, sold a deck of gaffed cards called 'Fa-Ko' cards. This deck is not anymore available but perhaps you can find it second hand. However, now that it is very easy to make your own playing cards (see DIY Playing Cards) this collection has gained in value.

From the foreword

The gimmicked cards required are listed at the beginning of each effect. The regular cards needed must be removed from a regular matching pack.

This FA-KO Pack is not a toy for children, nor is it a collection of "self-working" tricks. It is a collection of professional secrets,...

Imagine a deck that secretly tells you both the identity of a thought-of card and that card's numeric location, either in that deck or in another deck. Think of all the memorized deck applications this would simplify.

No memory work.

No tricky calculations to arrive at the card’s location.

Think of the myriad mentalism applications. A spectator peeks at any card in the deck and you instantly know what the card is and at what number it resides from the top or bottom of that deck or another deck. What's more, you obviously never see the back of the peeked card, which eliminates the...

Learn how to mark your cards with a professional card cheating system. Daniel has been a professional card cheat. He has the injuries to proof a near fatal beating due to an exposed sleight. If you want the real stuff, then here is the manuscript to read.

Bicycle Rider Back; Bicycle League Back; Tally-Ho Fan Back; Tally-Ho Circle Back + The first ever marking system for the David Blaine Split Spades.

Blood is a system for applying secret markings to the back of playing cards that can only be distinguished by the performer and are invisible to the naked eye of the spectator.

The system...

The ever creative and prolific Grant collected in this ebook 21 card tricks all based on the 'one-way' principle. Grant starts out with examples of decks which are one-way, how to setup everything, and how to handle the cards correctly.

1st edition 1935; original 23 pages; PDF 13 pages.