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Thurston also identifies himself as the inventor of the Si Stebbins stack in his book on Card Tricks. According to him Si only helped with suggestions and ideas.

An algorithmic stack allows one to calculate the card value (either the next card or a card at a particular position in the deck) without having to memorize an entire deck. The most famous such stack is Si Stebbins. Each method has its pros and cons. Try them out and see what works best for you.

Stage name of William Henry Coffrin, aka "Wm. Vino". Pro circus "rube" and card manipulator. Invented the Si Stebbins System (1898). [Note that Howard Thurston mentions in his book Card Tricks that he himself invented the stack and that Si helped him with suggestions and ideas.] As "Wm. Vino" wrote Si Stebbins' Card Tricks. Also wrote Si Stebbins Legacy to the Magicians (1935).

Thurston explains fundamental sleights such as the Pass, Palm, Force, Change, Back-Palm and his system of expert card manipulation, which appeared for the first time in this book. It also describes a unique gimmick to make the Back-Palm almost effortless.

Thurston also lays claim to what we today call the Si Stebbins stack. He writes that it is his invention but he also thanks Si for his contributions and help.

1st edition, 1903, Henry J. Wehman; 83 pages.

1. CHAPTER I. A Few Incidents in the Life of Howard Thurston, Premier Card Manipulator of the World
10. CHAPTER II. Indispensable Sleights
19. CHAPTER...

IDEAL HOLMES: The effect of the following was inspired by Steve Hamilton's 'Thinking Out Loud' (see The Crimp, No.10, and Roger's Thesaurus, by Roger Crosthwaite and Justin Higham). However, the principle employed stems from an observation made by Tom Sellers' in "A Trick with the Si Stebbins Pack" in Card Tricks That Work.

ALL SQUARE FORECAST: Stewart James seems to be among the first to realize the true potential of the magic square when applied to individual cards rather than simply having figures on a grid. While the following adaptation of the idea requires duplicates,...

Warren places utmost importance on the effect and uses whatever method suits him to achieve it: mathematics, stacks, crimps, sleights, etc. He credits Ed Marlo for clarifying and simplifying his work.

Contents

• Packet Prediction
• Miracle Do As I Do
• In My Estimation ...
• Blindfold Poker Deal
• Card Illusion
• Double Separation
• Royal Mentalism
• Superstitious Mentalism
• Peek!
• Divination Supreme
• Think-a-card - Wiersbe version
• A Change in Number
• Fantispell
• Pasteboard Affinity - a complete routine with eight effects using the Si Stebbins stack.

1st edition 1946; PDF 39 pages.

1. ...
   1. ... Poke Through Pass
   203. 4. King Size Pass
   204. 5. Tonguing
   206. 6. Lighted Cigarette Through Handkerchief
   207. 7. Card in Cigarette
209. Part Two: Applied Art: Head Magic
210. Chapter 13: Head Magic With Cards
     210. 1. Locations
     210. 1a. Unprepared Key Cards
     214. 1b. Prepared Key Cards
     216. 2. Mechanical Decks
     218. 3. Setups
     218. 3a. Systems: Si Stebbins, 8 Kings, Nikola
     220. Behind Your Back
     220. The Shuffled Setup
     221. The Foolproof Card in Pocket
     222. 3b. Special Setups
     222. Sound of the Voice
     223. Spot Location
     224. Got any Good Phone Numbers?
     224. The Royal Marriages (Dai Vernon)
     226. The 10 Card Trick
     227. 4. Card Reading
     227. 4a. By the One Ahead Method
     228. 4b. The Whispering...

• ...
  • ... Face Card Trick
  • The Talking Card
  • Double Duty
  • The Card That Tells
  • Card Counting Extraordinary
  • Double Revelation
  • The Puzzler
  • The Magic Four Spot
  • Cardini's Color Discernment
  • Miraskill
  • The Quickie Card Trick
  • Scarne's Six-Way Baffler
  • Variation On Six-Way Baffler
  • Thurston's Card Mystery
  • Si Stebbins' Master Memory Test
  • Si Stebbins' Master Card Tricks
  • Seeing Through The Deck
  • On The Square
• Poker Demonstrations
  • The Four Royal Flushes
  • The Dean's Poker Deal
  • The New Deal Poker Hand
  • Scarne's Drunken Poker Deal
  • Winning Poker
  • The Great Poker Demonstration
  • The Mishap Poker Deal ...

Paul Lesso
The Gobbolino Principlel: "I do like the Si Stebbins stack but I've always disliked the periodically rotating suits. I spent a long time looking at various different methods of alternating the suits and I came up with the Gobbolino principle."
The Fiend Stack: "The Fiend stack was born to fulfil a certain route to a memorized deck. I wanted...

• ...39 - The Three Heaps
• 40 - Jordan's Spelling Card Mystery
• 41 - Thought Foretold
• 42 - Getting the Spectator's Number
• 43 - Jack-Jack-Jack
• 44 - Number Trick
• 45 - Just a Teaser
• 46 - What Card Am I Thinking Of?
• 47 - Letter "P" Trick
• 48 - The Whispering Queen
• 49 - You Can't Miss
• 50 - A Peculiar Turn Around
• 51 - Si Stebbins' Master System

1st edition 1935; PDF 66 pages.

• ... in circles to discern the time and then the hour. This is not muscle reading. Also, as with anything in this book, it works 100% of the time.
• Australia: A very personal event that will bring your audience members to tears. Don promises you this. But you do need to know the BCS or at least the Si Stebbins or 8 Kings to pull this off.
• The Pirate Seance: Mr. Callahan graciously helped Don with this one. Dose not have to be a pirate I suppose, but you will use mass hallucination and induce everyone in your audience into believing that they were witnesses toga gruesome murder scene from over...

Most cyclical stacks are based on either mathematical progressions (Si Stebbins) or nonsense rhymes ("Eight Kings" and John Mulholland''s "Hungry Jackass.") While memorized stacks, such as the Nikola explained in Encyclopedia of Card Tricks, allow for the fastest determination of a cards position in the pack, performers who don''t use the set-up generally seem to avoid the memory route. The mathematical systems, which serve as substitutes for memory, can sometimes be difficult in performance situations. Furthermore, many of the mathematical formulas only allow you to determine the position of a given card, and not the card...

A mix of cards, mentalism, and quite unusual manipulation with glasses and thimbles.

1st edition 1937, reprinted 1963; 65 pages.

• CARD AND MENTAL MAGIC
  9. The Heal Coincidence Trick
  9. Telephone Telepathy
  11. Telephone Telepathy Again
  11. Alias Divination
  14. Magazine Miracle
  15. Strange Interlude
  18. A Slate Writing Method
  20. Slate Psychics
  22. The Ultimate One Man Sealed Message Heading System
  26. Predetermination
  32. And a Routine
  33. An Improved Four Ace Routine
  35. Selective Card in Pocket
  36. Si Stebbins Up the Sleeve
  37. The Perfect Card Routine
• MOSTLY MANIPULATIVE — With Glasses
  42. Glass of Liquid from Card Fan
  43. Some...

The Si Stebbins Pro Stack is highly interesting for any card stack enthusiast. Dr. Solka has taken the venerable Si Stebbins Stack and removed an inherent weakness, the rigid alternation of suit colors and strict suit rotation. The way he has done this is ingenious and will fly by everybody - magicians included. The single rule to remember is so simple that anybody can do it effortlessly. The seemingly random sequence of colors and suits is such that the deck can be spread face up without risk of detection from lay people as well as magicians.

The Card to Position relationship is explained...

Sleights & Moves:

• In-The-Hands Faro Technique
• Cutting At 26
• Adjusting the Cut
• In-Faros vs. Out-Faros
• Fine Points of the Faro Shuffle
• Re-Squaring the Packets
• In Case of a Miss
• Rock & Re-Weave
• The Faro Shuffle as a Real Shuffle
• Further Fine Faro Points
• The Fourth Finger Table
• Key Cards
• The Tabled Faro
• The Faro Check
• Stacking with the Faro Shuffle
• Combining Faro & Riffle
• The Ten-Card Poker Stack
• The Stay Stack
• Incomplete Faro Control
• Incomplete Faro with a Jog
• Automatic Placement Control
• Si Stebbins
• Any Card at Any Number
• Faro Mental Displacement
• Getting Packets the Same Size ...

1. ... - comments from Harry Stanley
229. The Miracle Flight - John Muir
232. Jack and the Beanstalk - Cyro
234. A Magician Explains - series by Lewis Ganson
     • A Thought in White - Remo Inzani
237. Two from Tom Sellers
     • A Useful Sleight of Hand Vanish for a Small Silk
     • Planetary Intuition - Annemann - Si Stebbins - T.S. [Tom Sellers]
238. Notice to Quip - series by Richard Merry
     • No. 22 - Christmas Again
240. Swivelleoo - Hubert Lambert
242. The Jon Tremaine Routine for the "Acrobatic Matchbox"
245. A Suggestion or Two by Harry Stanley
     • Silks from Newspaper
     • 20th Century Silks

257. Volume 13, Number...

1. ...
   • ...
   • The Biff-Bat Mystery - Will Blyth
   • Another Three-Card Monte - Tom Sellers
   • A Silken Secret
   • Chameleon Liquids
205. Jottings - C. Ducarel
     • The Apostle Trick
     • A Novel Card Move
     • A Magic Wand
     • Blindfold Card Trick
207. Book Notes
     • Secrets of My Magic - David Devant
     • Si Stebbins' Legacy - Si Stebbins
     • Frank Lane's Ideas, No. 2 - Frnak Lane
     • More Magic for You - Leeds Magical Society
     • 20 Best Pocket Tricks - Monte R. Viceroy
     • 20 Best Card Tricks - Monte R. Viceroy
209. Programmes
     • Frakson at the Price of Wales Theatre
     • Ronald Frankau at the Price of Wales Theatre
     • Cingalee at the Trocadero, Elephant and Castle
209. The Longshoreman - poem
209. A Christmas Production Idea - Frank Lane
210. Correspondence
     • Stars
     • New Books
     • A Buffet Table
     • Economics
211. A Mongoose Story - humor
212. Olla Podrida...

1. ... Sharpe
92. References in Magical Literature - article by Nicholls Harley
94. Easy Does It - J. A. Esler
96. Impromptu Card Effects - Nicholls Harley
    • I. The Permanence of Retinal Impressions
98. The Diving Duck - H. Lavilette
99. Book Notes
    • More than a Trick - Jack Vosburgh
    • Tele-Cardology - Si Stebbins
    • Mental Multiplication - Charles Lipkin
    • Magic as a Business - E. R. Springston & Horace Marshall
    • Tips, Tricks and Gags - Santini
    • Fifty Crazy Card Stunts - U. F. Grant
    • Fifty Methods of Producing a Silk - U. F. Grant
    • Fifty Cute Coin Tricks - U. F. Grant
    • Tricks with hair - U. F. Grant
100. Amid the Magazines
     • The Sphinx
     • Genii
     • The Tops
     • The Linking Ring ...

1. ...
   • ...
143. A Utility Prop - The Easy "Note Load" Easel - Ron Edwards
144. In Memory of Allerton - Arthur F. G. Carter
145. Card Magic - Vivian St. John
     • On Strippers
     • On False Shuffles
     • A False Shuffle
     • A False Riffle Shuffle
     • False Cut
     • A New Use for the Single Handed Pass
     • New Two-Handed Pass
     • Si-Stebbins Set-Up
     • An Effect with a Stripper Pack
148. Salutations to Robert-Houdin: His Life, Magic, and Automata - series by S. H. Sharpe
     • Section Two - Robert-Houdin, The Arch-Conjurer [continued]
       • Landmarks in the Life of Robert-Houdin [continued]
         • 1853
         • 1854
         • 1855
         • 1856
154. Just a Couple of Ideas - Len Belcher
     • A New Double Envelope
     • Manipulative Routine with Tissue Paper Balls
155. Tricks and Sleights - series by Tom Sellers
     • Torn and Restored Magazine Cover
     • The Homing Colours
     • A Modern Silk Canister
158. My Ring on Wand -...

1. ... Card Routine
2. Favorite ESP Card Trick
3. Secret Setup
4. Zarrow Shuffle
5. Escuela Magica de Madrid
6. How to Navigate Information
7. Favorite Non-Card Effects and Books
8. Magician Fooler
9. Notebook and Journal
10. Repertoire Books
11. How to Archive Tricks
12. General Card
13. Deck Switches
14. Stand-up Deck Switch
15. Best Si Stebbins Trick
16. Magic Pizza
17. Audience's Reality
18. Clocking the Deck
19. Performing Opportunities
20. Alternative Sleights
21. Kolossal Killer

You will learn how to prepare the Si Stebbins stack with two faro shuffles.

runtime: 2min 37s

1. ...
   • ... Pair!
305. A Tip for Tadman - Sid Lorraine
306. A Lucky Accident! - testimonial
306. To Australia - via The States - testimonial
306. A Good Thing - testimonial
307. Transparent Trickery - Ravelle and Andree
308. More raves! - testimonials
309. At Homb with McComb - Billy McComb
310. Snakes Alive! - news - Colin C. McCrory
311. Si Stebbins ESP - Theo Doré
314. Confetti Egg Routine - J.V. Reilly
315. The Phantom Artist - Arthur Setterington
316. Crazy Card Divinations - Val Andrews
320. What Bayard Wrote - comments from Bayard Grimshaw
321. As You Like It = Arthur Setterington
322. Club Talk - patter for Pavel's "Chameleon Knots" - Ken de Courcy
323. 9 Colour Change - Sam Dalal ...

1. ... Leaves of Gold
74. advertisements
81. Let's Face It - editorial by Ken de Courcy
82. Mail Box - correspondence
83. 318 Ganson's "Teach-In"
    • Minor Miracles
      • Pencil Twist
      • Pegs Apart
86. Mail Box - correspondence
    • The Magician's Insurance Policy
87. Two Tricks Utilising a Si Stebbins Set-Up - Keith Downs
88. A Record? - testimonial
89. The Pierrots - Reginald Boncey
90. Saucy! - jokes
91. Ideas and Tips - Harry Carnegie
    • Cups and Balls for Children
    • Puppets and Road Safety
    • Impromptu Lighted Match from Pocket
    • Preparing Cigarettes fro Production
92. The Treasure of Hi Fli Wun
94. A Card and a Celebrity (Publicity...

This is a collection of three similar but distinct publications by Si Stebbins, explaining his famous card stack and various tricks one can do with it. These three are reproduced in facsimile but made searchable with added bookmarks for easier navigation.

The first one has the title "Si and Mary Stebbins" and opens with a wonderful photo of Si and his wife Mary, original Barnum & Bailey Rube. It was printed by Press of Rex Printing House in Philadelphia. No publishing date is given but must be after 1913*. It features the system, rules, and 10 tricks followed by an additional section on Pinochle,...