Pages from more card manipulations no 3

More Card Manipulations No.

3

By JEAN HUGARD

J

More Card Manipulations No. 3

By JEAN HUGARD

ILLUSTRATIONS BY NELSON HAHNE

PUBLISHED BY

MAX HOLDEN NEW YORK

PHILADELPHIA

BOSTON

COPYRIGHT 1940 BY MAX HOLDEN

More Card Manipulations No. 3 CONTENTS SLEIGHTS The Faced Deck The Gambler's Table Change The Spread Pass The Thumb Slide New Method of Picking up an Arranged Pack An Easy Force Reversing the Bottom Card The Carlyle False Count The Miller Card Case The "Cottone" Spider-Grip False Cut Tricks therewith — A Stubborn Card Gambler's Sense of Touch Penetrating Eye Four Aces are Tops Poker Heaps Digging for Diamonds TRICKS Picking A Pocket Married Couples and Bachelors Springing the Trap The Two Pile Mystery Mene, Tekel, Upharsin (The Thirty Cards) a. Multiplication of Cards b. Robert-Houdin's Method c. Infiltration The Multiplication of Cards while in Someone's Hands....

Reverse Transfer Optical Illusion Think-A-Card Ziska Improved Three Cards and a Bank Note The Score Card Scores The Curry Turn Over Change A Cur(r)i-ous Prediction The Question is — Psycho-Carditis

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MORE CARD MANIPULATIONS

More Card Manipulations No. 3 THE FACED DECK — T H E SECRET TURN OVER The principle of the faced deck and the secret turn over is one of the oldest in card conjuring. The first mention of it that I have found is in Decremps, Testament de Jerome Sharpe, (1793), and his explanation reads as follows:—"Hold the cards at the end of the left hand, Fig 1, so that by closing the hand, they can be turned over, top to bottom, and they will be found, after the hand is opened, anew, as in Fig. 2. (They will not appear to have been turned over, because they show a white side above and below.)" French playing cards of the period had plain white backs, the patterned backs being a later development.

HE ORIG/NAL

FIG. I

/ILU3TH/]ATIONS

FIG. 2

In Modern Magic (1876) Professor Hoffman described a later method. He says: "Take the pack flat in the left hand, the fingers clipping" it rather tightly, but without the aid of the thumb. Press the thumb underneath, and with the ball of the thumb press the pack smartly upwards (see Fig. 3), when it will describe a semi-revolution on its longer axis, the lower face of the pack being thereby brought uppermost."

MORE CARD MANIPULATIONS

A still later method, and the one in popular use at the present time is to hold the pack in the left hand as for dealing, drop the hand to the side and, at the same time, turn it over bringing its back uppermost. When the hand is then raised, the pack has been turned over, the original lower half being uppermost. Figs. 4 and 5.

The drawback to all three methods is that the necessary movement of the pack has to be covered by a quick and unnatural movement of the hand and arm, or by very strong misdirection, such as the accidental dropping of a card to the floor, the sleight being executed under cover of the action of picking up the card. In the following method these drawbacks are eliminated and the sleight becomes a simple and natural move.

The halves of the deck having been brought face to face secretly, when it becomes necessary to turn the deck over to bring the cards of the lower portion uppermost, proceed as follows:—Hold the deck in the right hand between the thumb, at the lower left corner, and the top joint of the third finger, at the upper right corner. Fig. 6. Press all four fingers close together, so that the pack is practically hidden by the back of the hand.

FIG.S

FIG. 6

Bring the hands together in the act of placing the pack in the left hand and, in doing so, press the tip of the right first finger on the upper left corner. This downward pressure will cause the pack to pivot on the two diagonally opposite corners which are held by the thumb and forefinger and the required half turn is made imperceptibly as the pack is placed quite naturally in the left hand. The right hand then moves away, or continues the deal, according to the requirements of the trick in hand.

The principle of the faced deck has been neglected by modern magicians. One of the few tricks in which it is used is the Four Ace Trick.

Every now and then someone bobs up in print with this new method of working the trick by means of the faced deck, unconscious of the fact that this was the original method which is fully explained in