The man who fooled the man who fooled Houdini?

[Guest]

As I already mentioned, in Cervon/Burns: THE VERNON CHRONICLES, Vol.4, 1992, pp. 186 187 Vernon is speaking about double back cards. He made no mention of DeLand. It is unimaginable that Vernon had not known DeLand's use of db-cards.

I quote from Cervon/Burns:
"I didn't invent the double-back card, it was original with, I imagine, Hofzinser. He used it very artistically in one or two tricks...." .

Reinhard

[Richard Kaufman]

It's unlikely that Vernon learned of the double-backed card from Hofzinser's effects until after the tricks were serialized in The Sphinx, a decade later than DeLand. But in the teens, you could not walk into a magic shop in the United States without seeing DeLand's Two-Card Monte.

[Guest]

I will more exactly give the date of publication of THE SPHINX regarding Hofzinsers db-card application:

In the July 1922 issue, on page 178 is described Hofzinsers DOMINATION OF THOUGHT Second Method (Fred T. Singletons translation of Ottokar Fischers Hofzinser book KARTENKNSTE). And as I see from Cervon/Burns: THE VERNON CHRONICLES, Vol.4 Vernon was studying THE SPHINX.
In this time fits the following note [from Whaley's Encyclopedic Dictionary]:"Dai Vernon, Arthur Finley, and S. Leo Horowitz who began experimenting with double-backers in the mid-1920s became responsible for popularizing them in modern card magic in the early 1930s"


In Cervon/Burns: THE VERNON CHRONICLES, Vol.4, 1992, DeLands name is nowhere mentioned. May be DeLands effects were not up to Vernons standards ?
That idea I got in reading the articles ON USING TRICK CARDS in Cervon/Burns: THE VERNON CHRONICLES, Vol.4, p. 98 and on NEW YORK MAGIC SHOPS, Cervon/Burns: pp.66-72.
So it can be that Hofzinsers ingenious application of a db-card in his DOMINATION OF THOUGHT initiated Vernon to think about the use of the db-card.

Richard, are there any hints in THE VERNON TOUCH book (Yes, I ordered it, looking forward to that book!)? -->
I just find a hint in my Escorial 1997 manuscript about VERNON'S LECTURES IN GERMANY:
Vernon's explanation of the starting phase is to find in "The Vernon Touch", GENII, Vol.37, No.4, Apr.1973, p.147: "... The tag line "He fooled Houdini" (...) in doing the Ambitious Card for Houdini I simply used a double backed card on top of the deck ...".

And another use of the db-card as a gag:
[from: Whaleys Encyclopedic Dictionary]:
"Another very oldie: placing a double-backer at the top of the pack, asking a fellow cardician to show you how to make a card turn face up by dropping the pack."
- Fred Braue in Hugard's Magic Monthly (Jun 1948), 428