Table Of ContentCARD & AAAGIC
TRICKS
Eve Devereux and Peter Eldin
Poof! You're a magician!
Impress your family and friends with the 31
easy-to-learn, fun-to-perform clever acts in
CARD & MAGIC TRICKS. The clear, step-by-
step instructions and picture diagrams make
each trick simple for the magician to follow
and hard for the audience to figure out.
Learn:
•The Scurvy Knaves: How to make cards
appear to switch position in a deck, all
by themselves.
• See-Through Production: How to pull a
scarf out of an empty box.
• Not in the Club: How to pick a card of
a different suit from a group of 13 of
the same suit—while blindfolded!
• The Coin Fold: How to make a coin
disappear.
• Cards that Spell: Convince your
audience you have taught your cards
how to spell!
Photographs and colorful illustrations chart
every part of the way through a trick, showing
aspiring magicians where their hands should be
and how the objects should be held in each
step of an act.
Many of the tricks also include variations to
help spice up the act and tips to keep your
tricks from being discovered by even the most
avid watcher.
(Continued on back flap)
GV
1549
.D46
2004
NOTOWN
Card
MOV 0 2 2005
CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY
NOR m rC WN BRANCH
M35N.CALiFOnNIA.AVE 60641
Card & Magic
Tricks
Over 30 easy-to-perform stunts to amaze and confound
Eve Devereux and Peter Eldin
Gramercy Books
New York
A QUANTUM BOOK
Copyright © 2004 Quantum Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means
electronic or mechanical including photocopying and recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This 2004 edition is published by Gramercy Books, an imprint of Random House Value
Publishing, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, by arrangement with Quantum
Publishing Limited, London.
Gramercy is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of
Random House, Inc.
Random House
New York • Toronto • London • Sydney • Auckland
www.randomhouse.com
QUMCMT
This book is Produced by
Quantum Publishing
6 Blundell Street
London N7 9BH
Manufactured in Singapore by
Pica Digital Pte Ltd
Printed in Singapore by
Star Standard Industries Pte Ltd
A catalog record for this title is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 0-517-22309-0
10 987654321
ROMDSHO^SE
Contents
CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY
NOR
01 TOWN BRANCH
•435 N. CALIFORNIA AVE 6064f
Card Tricks Magic Tricks
Introduction.....6 Introduction._...52
Basic Techniques...9 Magic through the Ages_54
Cards that Spell.__._.20 Coin in Ball of Wool__ 56
Not in the Club._.23 Card Control. 58
Cards that Count._____.24 Card through Handkerchief_61
The White Rabbit’s Card Trick._.27 Ring off Rope. 63
Holey Handkerchief_ 28 Ring on Pencil ._____._.66
Topsy-turvy Gamble.30 The Coin Fold.___... 69
The Vain Card_32 A Capital Prediction._...72
The Scurvy Knaves_ 34 Drink from Nowhere__74
Mutus Nomen Cocis Dedit _.36 The Rising Cards...77
Reciting the Deck.38 On the Tip of my Tongue_79
Conformist Jack.-.40 Sun and Moon.____._____.82
Joker’s Delight. 42 Solid through Solid._____...85
Swap._._.— 44 Cut and Restored Rope.__.88
Hopscotch from the Deck__46 Bank Night...___._____ 91
See-through Production _95
Twistins Card.48
Eve Devereux
Introduction
-V-
No book can teach you how to be a magician: it can granted to the mass of humankind. At least, they are
only teach you how to perform tricks. The rest is prepared to maintain this fiction so long as you
entirely up to you. present your con tricks with sufficient charm (or,
This is because performance magic - conjuring - rarely, anti-charm) and vivacity to persuade the
is really one great big con trick, with the performer audience that you are keeping to your side of the
being only one of the con artists involved. The unwritten bargain - that you are working very hard
audience know that you are not using real magic, to keep them entertained. Successful criminal con
that you are cheating them in some way, yet they are artists have almost always relied on this: they work
prepared to maintain the fiction in their own minds with such charm and ingenuity that their dupes want
that you are using abilities that have not been to believe in them!
persuade your audience that they are anything but. notice (misdirection). Every card trick can be made
PATTER
Instead, therefore, you must arrange for all the to tell a story, and ideally it should be a story that
This is your major aid, especially when performing a ostentatious magical effects to take place inside you have invented yourself. Indications of the type
routine consisting entirely or largely of card tricks. your audience's heads: you must manipulate their of yarns you might tell are given in this book. Many
Cards do not (usually) jump through hoops or burst minds - indeed, that is exactly what they want you tricks (eg, the scurvy Knaves tricks - see pages
into flames, or any of the other things that more to do. 34-35) have traditionally had such tales attached to
elaborate magical props can be called upon to do: Your best tool for doing this is patter, which is them. Best of all, though, is if you take the basis of a
they are merely immobile pieces of pasteboard, also your main ally in directing the audience’s trick, adapt it as you want, and then invent your own
although often enough you will be trying to attention away from things you do not wish them to story to go along with it.
Also an important part of your patter is the
relationship you establish with the audience. Usually
you will want to make them laugh, to get them on
your side,- you can even get them on your side by
consistently insulting them, just as long as your
insults are witty enough. However, do not be
tempted to make humiliating jokes at the expense of
those members of the audience you ask to help you
(in this book always called volunteers). The
volunteers have paid their entrance money just like
everyone else, and may have conquered
considerable nervousness to assist you in front of a
hall of spectators, so to hurt their feelings would be
unforgivably discourteous.
Work on building up the sequence of tricks you
want to perform to make a full routine. One line of
patter should not end at the finish of one trick, to be
replaced by a quite different line at the start of the
next. All through the routine, the various elements of
your patter should flow naturally into one another.
Deciding on a theme is a good way of doing this,- a
running joke can be helpful.
