Cards in Magic & Conjuring: page 94

This is one of the books that Abbott published for the troops during wartime in the 1940's. It uses Si Stebbins system, except the step size is 4 rather than 3, also known as "The Riverboat Stack" or "Mark Twain Stack" (see New Card Tricks with the Mark Twain Stack). Routines can be performed with most other stacks.

• Foreword
• The Magic Card System: The Rules That Make It Work
• Effect Number One: A Skeptical Spectator Interrupts
• Effect Number Two
  • It Might Happen To You
  • Effect Number Two As Performed By Two Persons
• Effect Number Three
• Effect Number Four
• Effect Number Five
  • The Effect Done With An Assistant
• Effect Number Six ...

Here are 19 clever and entertaining card magic miracles that can be performed with prepared cards. Explained are several amazing principles involving prepared cards, with ingenious ideas for their use. Also included, with special permission, are several creations by Ford B. Rogers, which were published in this book for the first time.

Here's what's included:

• Foreword
• "Incomprehensibility" (Rogers)
• The Key Card (Two Methods)
• Forcing a Card (with the Key Card) A Feat of Apparent Mindreading
• The "Reversed Card" Principle
• The Prediction
• The "Self-Shifting" Pack (Two Methods)
• The Card...

This is a classic on card magic covering sleights, routines, special cards, and apparatus. It is very likely that already S.W. Erdnase read this book.

• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER I: PRINCIPLES OF SLEIGHT OF HAND
  • The Pass
  • To Force a Card
  • The Change
  • To Palm a Card
  • The False Shuffle
  • To Slip a Card
  • The Ruffle
  • To Throw a Card
  • To Spring the Cards from One Hand to the Other
• CHAPTER II: SLEIGHT OF HAND TRICKS
  • The Cards Passing up the Sleeve
  • The Card and Cigarette
  • To Pass a Card Through a Handkerchief
  • To Pass any Number of Cards along the Sleeve, and Produce them from the Breast Pocket ...

Two card routines and a couple of tips and stories from the recollections of the author.

• Shifting Sands: a routine using a sand frame
• The "Three-Repeat Tenner"

1st edition 1939, 14 pages; PDF 11 pages.

EFFECT: A ten-minute routine or act as a demonstration of how the gambler cheats. Great for close-up work or a club act. In this new act; no sleights are required. Still, you apparently deal bottoms, seconds, four aces, winning hands, etc. For example, anyone shuffles the deck, cuts it and hands it to you; still you can deal yourself 4 aces.

It's a fake, that requires no practice, but they will never know it. Demonstrate your skill without lengthy practice. Appear to be a card expert, instantly. Yes, practically every magician has wished that he could present a good gambling demonstration....

If you like a real card baffler, look no further. This is a sort of 'One-Deck Do-As-I-Do' but it works on a very different principle.

Cards are shuffled and cut both by the spectator and the performer (really!). The spectator mentally chooses a card (free choice) and the performer does the same. Then the cards are shuffled again. Unbelievably, the magician and the spectator get cards of the same value and colour. It almost works itself.

Effect: The performer cuts a portion off the pack, hands it to a spectator and asks him to do exactly as he does. First they both shuffle their packets,...

Here is a fall-over-easy card trick that has taken in well-informed magicians. Based on Ken de Courcy’s ‘You Do As I Do’ approach called [lp=922355You’ll Get The Point], Baxter rises to the occasion with a baffling presentation using a cleverly concealed, ancient principle. Totally impromptu, no gimmicks, set up or sleights.

Why the extraneous procedure of changing packets? To Ian, this seems totally unnecessary, although (obviously) the mechanics of the trick, as is, necessitate it. This effect is almost exactly the same as the de Courcy contribution, but the method is altogether different.

1st edition 2018, 2 pages....

EFFECT: The performer shows five playing cards that are cut in half width-wise, making a total of ten half cards. He shows that there is a matching card half within the small packet of cards. The performer invites two spectators to help. We’ll refer to as Spectator A and Spectator B. He gives the packet to Spectator A and has him shuffle the cards thoroughly so no one knows the order of the cards.

The performer turns his back and says to Spectator A, “While my back is turned, please deal to the other person; face down, as many or as few cards as you wish. What cards you get is unimportant....

A close-up "lay-out" type effect based on a mythical game, "New Zealand Brag".

You deal out the shuffled Aces, Kings and Queens, yet miraculously when the hands are turned over they have separated into suits and, what is more, each hand is in their right order, Queen, King, Ace! Something very different in card magic.

1st edition 2018, 5 pages.

A perennial favorite in card magic: A chosen card is lost in the deck and the performer, showing the Ace, Two and Three of one suit, offers to change whichever is picked into the selection. That is exactly what happens, with Baxter’s smooth method making good use of The Ascanio Spread, achieving just that. Full instructions given, straightforward and easy to learn.

This revision of the Vernon classic not only underlines the all-important simplicity angle by using a shortcut display move, but dispenses with Vernon's need for Palming. Bruce Elliott briefly touched on this in the concluding lines...

Based on a Bob Hummer and Karl Fulves principle. A spectator is handed seven playing-cards. He shuffles them, then places one of them aside face-down without looking at it. Now squares of cardboard are shown with cut-out windows. Spectator follows the magician's instructions and, at the end, looking through the cut-out windows in the cards, an index of a card appears. The chosen card is turned over and has been correctly revealed.

You will have to make up the squares of cardboard for this. The trick itself is self-working, the real work having been put into the evolution of the effect, but they are useful for...

That popular card plot One-Eyed Jack Sandwich is given a new lease of life here, with the assisting spectator being asked where the magic is to take place – within the deck or out of it. Themed after a 1930’s classic The Charmed Watch, this smooth handling is sure to delight the most fastidious card man.

The One-Eyed Jack Sandwich theme was popularized by Harry Lorayne. However, it was none other than the Australian Charles Wicks who started the ball rolling, with his contribution The Charmed Watch appearing in The Magic Wand journal over eighty years ago. Ian's streamlined version keeps within the guidelines of...

Here is a 21st Century version of John Scarne's Think-A-Card, published by U.F. Grant back in 1938. Whereas Scarne's version relied on the convenience of writing predictions on cigarette papers, Baxter completely dispenses with this quaint idea with a new, slick presentation.

Daley was really fired up about this highly effective mental test from the ingenious Scarne: "You are about to become the possessor of a rare and beautiful gem in mental magic" he enthused. "Simple in its modus operandi and yet so tremendously effective...an almost perfect demonstration of mind reading."

Scarne, a universally recognized...

A very easy to do prediction effect with a surprising ending.

The performer introduces ten cards and deals them into a face-down packet to prove it. He hands the packet to a spectator and asks him to think of any number between one and ten. The cards are then cut by the spectator and shuffled. Then they are laid out in a face-down line. The performer asks the spectator to, for the first time, announce the number he thought of, then counts along the line to that number and pushes out the card lying at that position. (Note that this is a real count that can be done from the spectator - absolutely...

The magician shows an ungimmicked deck of cards and lets the spectator shuffle them, if he so desires. A card is then freely selected using no force and pushed back into the middle of the deck. The magician then cuts the deck and deals the top five cards in a face down horizontal row in front of the spectator.

The magician then shows a dollar bill and says "A lot of people don't know this, but George Washington is also a magician and I think he can find your card!" The magician says this tongue-in-cheek.

With the front of the bill facing the spectator and being held over the first face...

"Another look at the Three Of Clubs problem" and you will be hard pressed to find an easier, more practical application than this one. Performer places a card on the table, spectator thinks of and names any card in the deck. Performer turns over his prediction and wow...that's it!

The raw effect is impressive: Performer extracts a card from the deck, placing it face down to the table. Spectator now names any card that comes to mind, with the tabled selection revealed as the one thought of. Yes, as brief and as straightforward as that.

A firm favourite that has been making the rounds for...

An entertaining mental feat with a borrowed deck of cards.

From the brilliant mind of Bob Hummer comes a divination mystery that seems impossible, yet you do it every time. The performer takes the spectator on an adventure with a borrowed deck and a dead person's age (which is furnished by anyone in the room). In some uncanny manner, the "Whispering Spirit" aids the performer in solving the mystery. The performer does not need to touch the deck while they are in the spectator's hands.

There are no setups, stacks or cyclical rotations. The cards may be borrowed. The cards are not marked....

A winning poker hand turns blank on both sides.

Two tricks in one. These are two of the most visual and eye-appealing tricks you can do. Looks like trick photography and takes around 30 seconds to perform. They are almost self-working and require no sleights. You can learn to do these effects in about five minutes. They are that easy to do. Resets in 3 seconds. This is perfect for strolling gigs because of the instant reset.

EFFECT 1: Magician says he would like to share a dream he had. He cleanly shows five playing cards back and front. It is a winning poker hand and the stakes are high....

From noted card man and gaming expert John Scarne comes this clean-cut triple prediction miracle effect that will build a reputation for you. No difficult sleights. Simple, sure and direct. The publisher had been after Scarne for years to release this clever item, before he finally agreed.

Any deck of cards is shuffled by anyone and spread out on the table face up. Two spectators and the performer each merely think of a card and you write a prediction on small slips of paper for each card thought of. The thought-of cards are pushed out of the pack and the predictions are placed on top of...

Find any card a spectator takes from a borrowed and shuffled pack.

EFFECT: The magician tells his audience he has trained his mind to work like a computer. To demonstrate its computer-like capabilities, he asks a spectator to shuffle a pack of cards then, without looking at it, remove one card and place it in his pocket. Taking back the pack, the performer runs through it quickly, then goes through it again even more quickly and pulls out one card which he places face down on the table. The spectator removes his card from his pocket and places it face-up alongside the magician's card, then...

An exceptionally clever version of the 4-Ace Trick - no trick aces - use a borrowed deck.

In effect the 4 aces are dealt singly on to the table, face down. Twelve indifferent cards are then shown and dealt on to them, making four packets, one of which is chosen by a spectator. No force of any kind, believe it or not, he takes any of the four packets. The remaining three are turned over to show all indifferent cards. The four Aces are in the packet chosen. It's the most convincing of all Four Ace Tricks, and we know it will fool the best of card men. A couple of easy-to-do moves and the special...

In one of the New York Magic Symposium volumes there is a trick by Brother John Hamman entitled "The Lie-Detector Card Case". In it, he describes a truly brilliant-in-its-simplicity method for discovering a merely-thought-of card. Here is an alternative ending to it which, for me, makes it easier for larger audiences to see.

EFFECT

A spectator shuffles a pack of cards, then merely thinks of a card as the performer counts some over before his eyes. The cards are shuffled, then the performer shows the cards at the top and bottom of the pack; the selected card is not among them. Next, he introduces two paper...

You reveal a freely thought card.

EFFECT: Spectator freely selects several cards from his own shuffled deck and thinks of one. Those are returned and mixed in the pack. By means of "tuned thought-waves" the performer discovers the very card spectator is thinking of and, either names it dramatically, or causes it to obey his command in a distinctly "unique" manner. A real mental mystery.

Remember:

• No advance preparation
• The card is really only thought
• Free choice without any force
• Cards can be borrowed
• Very subtle method…you will love it.

PDF 5 pages

British magician Alex Elmsley carved a permanent niche for himself into the field of card magic, not only for his Elmsley Count, but two outstanding effects: "Between Your Palms" and "Point Of Departure". This manuscript explores a new and combined approach to these, put together by Ian Baxter. Easy, straightforward and uncomplicated. One of Baxter's best and highly recommended.

1st edition 2019, PDF 4 pages.