Popular Card Tricks

Walter Gibson intended this book for the novice. All the tricks are quite easy to perform. And in the beginning under the heading "The Presentation of Card Tricks" Gibson gives very valuable advice of how to create a program and how to present it.

Nevertheless the book is so good that even the intermediate and advanced card magician will be able to learn a lot from its pages.

This book was originally written by Walter B. Gibson for Houdini. Houdini's death in 1926 prevented him putting it out, and Walter issued it under his own name. Ted Annemann considered it one of the best books in its field . . . it had done much to rouse his youthful enthusiasm for card tricks. He had intended to use it as a Jinx Special (he actually allowed pages 831 to 878 for it in the Jinx, and was pasting it up when death intervened. Later Lloyd Jones had reissued it, with a new introduction by Walter, on slick book stock with the illustrations just as it was originally. The cover is the same, but on heavy art paper in three colors. 48 pages, size 8 1/2 x 11 - easy to do card tricks again available; now you can fill that gap in your Jinx file.

• Preface
• Table Of Contents
• The Presentation Of Card Tricks
  • Know What You Are Doing
  • Lead Up To Mystery
  • Progress Rapidly From Trick To Trick
  • Patter
  • Do Not Fear Exposure
• Chapter 1: Self Working Card Tricks
  • The Mystic Prediction
  • The Heap Of Three
  • Two Groups Of Cards
  • The Transposed Cards
  • Two Chosen Numbers
  • The Mysterious Queen
  • Jacks And Jokers
  • The Psychic
  • The Assembly
  • The Royal Flushes
  • Eleven Cards
  • The Heap Dealing Mystery
  • The Twenty-One Cards
  • The Same Number
  • The Three Heap Trick
  • The Twenty-Five Card Trick
  • The Ten Card Circle
• Chapter 2: Methods For Locating And Appearing Cards
  • Method One A Single Card Location
  • Method Two The “Pointer” Cards
  • Method Three Single Ends
  • Method Four The Three Heaps
  • Method Five Card Counting
  • Method Six The Double Deal
  • The Card From The Hat
  • Cutting The Pack
  • The Card On The Hand
  • The Reversed Card
  • A Surprising Finish
  • Cards In The Hat
  • A Spelling Trick
  • The Turnup Card
  • The Name From The Ashes
  • The Card From The Pocket
  • Seven And Eight
  • A Striking Discovery
  • The Card On The Chair
• Chapter 3: Mysterious Card Tricks Performed With The Aid Of Special Systems
  • The Twenty Card Trick
  • The Thirty-Six Card Trick
  • Three Heaps And Three Cards
  • Thought Anticipated
  • Pocket To Pocket
  • A Mental Choice
  • The Card In The Pocket
  • The Cards In The Case
  • The Three Heaps
  • Predicting Cards
  • The Master Clock Trick
  • The Ten Card Trick
  • Kings And Queens
  • The Card Marvel
  • An Improved Mental Mystery
• Chapter 4: Tricks Requiring Prearrangement
  • Section One The Prearranged Deck
  • Telling The Top Cards
  • From Heap To Heap
  • The Card In The Envelope
  • Discovering A Selected Card
  • Odd Or Even
  • Detecting Chosen Cards
  • Cards In The Handkerchief
  • Cards In The Pocket
  • To Name The Card At Any Position
  • To Tell The Position Of Any Card
  • Naming Cards In Order
  • The Bridge Trick
  • Section 2 Other Tricks Requiring Prearrangment
  • The New Pack Of Cards
  • The Automatic Deal
  • A Marvelous Prediction
  • Another Bridge Trick
  • Spelling The Cards
  • Aces And Kings
  • The Mysterious Rows
  • The Invisable Passage
• Chapter 5: Miscellaneous Card Mysteries
  • The Ace In The Pocket
  • The Turnabout Cards
  • The Devining Card
  • The Glass On The Card
  • The Escaping Card
  • The Balancing Card
  • The Three Jack Deal
  • The Automatic Rising Card
  • The Four Card Trick
  • The Self Cutting Pack
  • Cards In The Hat
  • The Cherry Colored Card
  • The Mental Divination
  • The Thirteen Card Deal
  • The Little Duke Trick
  • The Color Changing Pack
  • The Automatic Deal
  • The Adhesive Cards
• Concluding Remarks

1st edition 1926; PDF 106 pages.
word count: 34577 which is equivalent to 138 standard pages of text