The Genii Forum

I am sure many of you are aware of the ruse where a deck of cards with white borders can be used as a one-way-back deck if the white borders are not symmetric. Sometimes the print is off and one border is thinner than the other. Sorting the cards with respect to where the thin white border is gives one a one-way deck, because if one card is turned end-for-end it can be identified from the back. I have learned this method decades ago from a non-magician who showed it to me. I am wondering where this is published. I am not necessarily looking for the first place it has been published. Any place is fine.

Steranko on Cards has a routine (Fantasy Card Routine) that makes use of the faces being offset. He mentions the backs version, but his exploits the faces.

Move a Card in Cunning Card Miracles by Jerry Mentzer

Jack Gwynne mentioned the faces of court cards being off-center, making a one-way bank of cards, in 1936 in an article in Popular Mechanics.

Judson Cameron, in Cheating at Bridge (1933), mentions trimming cards so the borders are wide at one end and narrow at the other. Trim the court cards this way, and trim everything else by the same amount in total, but cut evenly from both ends. This way the margins on the back will mark the valuable cards.

The off-center faces on court cards is also mentioned in The Secret Out, 1859, p 106.

Use of off-center backs to make a one-way deck is mentioned in Tops Apr 1956, p. 5, by Roxy in "A Wrinkle on Card Wizardry."

(Chris -- I found this information in AskAlexander, so you may not feel comfortable using it.)

Thanks folks. Much appreciated I found a mention of it in Magic Magazine December 2013, page 69.

Bill Mullins wrote:(Chris -- I found this information in AskAlexander, so you may not feel comfortable using it.)

Indeed, I would have preferred you not using and posting from a database that massively infringes copyrights.

See Tops, Vol. 1, no 8, August 1936, page 12. Miscellaneous Card Subleties by Lynn Searles.
The explanation is very succinct!

I remember Bicycle 808's being so bad in the 90's that every deck was an unintentional one way deck. Haven't noticed that happening nearly as much in the current cards.

The coolest one way I've seen recently was in the run of Magic Castle decks issued before the anniversary special editions. (I think it was Steve Bryant who initially pointed it out).

This has been known since the late 1800s, I'm sure.

This shows up frequently in Bicycle cards bought in a brick from Costco and Sam's Club. Definitely not something new, as I noticed this discrepancy in some decks more than fifty years ago when I first started to learn card magic. Not quite as far back as the 1800's, but close enough.