The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Discuss your favorite close-up tricks and methods.
performer
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The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby performer » May 24th, 2017, 5:03 pm

Oddly enough I am not talking about myself for once. However, I just found on the internet some information about the greatest card magician I have ever seen. Or at least the greatest single performance of card magic I have ever seen. I only saw this fellow perform once but that was enough. I have never seen anything better since.

Would you care to know who it was? If you do I will post the biographical information.

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Q. Kumber
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Favorite Magician: Tom Whitestone

Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby Q. Kumber » May 24th, 2017, 5:37 pm

The best stand-up card magician I have seen was Johnny Hoffman who mostly performed with carnivals in the summer and schools and halls in the winter. He died in Ireland in 1975. I never saw him do any close-up but he could and did do 30-40 minutes with just a deck, using mostly the pass, the classic force and the bottom change.

timbrown
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby timbrown » May 24th, 2017, 5:44 pm

performer wrote:Oddly enough I am not talking about myself for once. However, I just found on the internet some information about the greatest card magician I have ever seen. Or at least the greatest single performance of card magic I have ever seen. I only saw this fellow perform once but that was enough. I have never seen anything better since.

Would you care to know who it was? If you do I will post the biographical information.

I'm interested! Who was this person?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

performer
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Joined: August 7th, 2015, 10:35 pm

Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby performer » May 24th, 2017, 6:43 pm

Q. Kumber wrote:The best stand-up card magician I have seen was Johnny Hoffman who mostly performed with carnivals in the summer and schools and halls in the winter. He died in Ireland in 1975. I never saw him do any close-up but he could and did do 30-40 minutes with just a deck, using mostly the pass, the classic force and the bottom change.


Oh, that's nothing! I can also do 45 minutes of stand up card magic. In fact I used to do a night club act consisting solely of card tricks. That was only 15 minutes though. However, in Mexico when I performed at the resorts I did 6 card repeat, three cards across, holy hairlock trick, Nap Hand, Tipsy Trick, Pulse Trick and various other stand up card tricks I am too tired to remember. It was a 45 minute show consisting solely of card tricks.
It really is no big deal.

Lionel King, Billy O'Connor, Leipzig and in the present day Ricky Jay have done stand up card magic that can be done from a distance.

performer
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby performer » May 24th, 2017, 6:44 pm

timbrown wrote:
performer wrote:Oddly enough I am not talking about myself for once. However, I just found on the internet some information about the greatest card magician I have ever seen. Or at least the greatest single performance of card magic I have ever seen. I only saw this fellow perform once but that was enough. I have never seen anything better since.

Would you care to know who it was? If you do I will post the biographical information.

I'm interested! Who was this person?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Here you are:

https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.c ... =177462590

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Q. Kumber
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby Q. Kumber » May 25th, 2017, 2:54 am

What an interesting and well researched article. Dr Ian Ellis-Jones has done his homework.

performer
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby performer » May 25th, 2017, 6:52 am

He is obviously a fan of the man and seems to have known him personally. Here is more:

http://ianellis-jones.blogspot.ca/2011/ ... lness.html

I found this small paragraph in the article very interesting. It seems the good doctor agrees with my assessment. Note the phrase "best card magician I have ever seen". I only saw him once. I have no idea if he was the best card magician I have ever seen. However, I do know it was the best live performance of card magic I have ever seen and all he was using was a svengali deck.

"Joe Stuthard, who with fellow magician Harry Baron cofounded The Kaymar Magic Company, was without doubt the best card magician I have ever seen, and he was a dexterous master of misdirection ... that is, when the attention of the audience is focused on one thing in order to distract its attention from another. Misdirection is the psychological aspect or component of the physical act of deception."

performer
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby performer » May 25th, 2017, 7:18 am

Here is a little story I heard about Joe Stuthard. I have absolutely no idea if it is true or not. It sounds incredible if it is. I was once travelling somewhere or other and a fellow grafter was driving the car. He had known and worked with Joe Stuthard in the past. He told me, "I saw him sell 40 of your decks in one demonstration" meaning the svengali deck. I found this impossible to believe and in fact I still do since I am pretty good with the deck myself and the most I have ever sold in one demonstration is a mere 15.

I therefore challenged the statement and was assured it was true. I asked, "how can you be sure it was 40? You must have an over active imagination!" He retorted, "I counted them as he sold them!" He then went on to say, "Mind you, it was Christmas and it was "bang on" and we were all taking fantastic money at the time". The expression "bang on" is grafters vernacular for people throwing money at you.

I still doubt the story but if anyone could do it Stuthard would be the one. It was a fantastic demonstration of two tricks, the wonder mouse and the svengali deck. I remember he produced a candy from either his own nose or a child's nose. I copied this and produce a coin from my own nose to this day when I do my version of the Slydini one coin routine which I follow with glass through the table.

It is a pity Stuthard is not better known among magicians. I have written quite a bit about Joe Stuthard on my blog. Here is one excerpt:

https://marklewismagician.wordpress.com ... -stuthard/

MagicbyAlfred
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby MagicbyAlfred » May 25th, 2017, 5:31 pm

WOW great article about a fascinating entertainer and grafter. It's no wonder he was so good considering his many travels and shows throughout the world over a long period. And he travelled by ship, which means he probably performed a lot en route to his many destinations. All the practice and reading in the world will never compare to just getting out in the trenches and performing, particularly if one wants to learn how to deal with people, understand their psychology and truly entertain with magic.

I was particularly intrigued by the observation that he originally carried his show in a one-pound chocolate box, subsequently he had a 1/2 ton of props that filled a station wagon, and then after becoming experienced, in a 1/2 pound chocolate box! i am continually trying to trim down what i carry - especially for close-up. Loved the story about how when his family's house caught fire as a young boy, the one item he retrieved was a deck of cards...Now there's a lad who had his priorities straight.

i definitely see some strong parallels between Joe and Performer, perhaps providing some insight into why the latter relates to and admires him so much.

performer
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby performer » May 25th, 2017, 6:16 pm

I saw him on a school trip to the Daily Mail Schoolboys and Girls exhibition when I was 14 years old. I had never seen anything like it. The ironic thing is that I started my grafting career many years later at the very same venue. I sold 40 decks on my first day. There have been times since when I have sold ten times that in one day.

What a pity there seems to be no video or film footage around where Stuthard could be seen at work. I do have a few photos of him on my blog though.

MagicbyAlfred
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby MagicbyAlfred » May 25th, 2017, 7:10 pm

PERFORMER WROTE: "I saw him on a school trip to the Daily Mail Schoolboys and Girls exhibition when I was 14 years old."

Was that when the seed of magic (and/or Graftsmanship) was planted in you Performer? Or, perhaps it had been planted earlier, but seeing Joe watered it, provided sunshine and otherwise cultivated it?

We probably all have memories of how and when we caught the "magic bug." In the case of most of our members, I would guess that there were one or more profound early influences. I know in my case there certainly were: (1) At 6 years old, my first trip to a magic store in Brooklyn New York, and the purchase of my first tricks, nickels and dimes and the magical Milk Pitcher, after the demonstrator blew my little mind; (2) My uncle Alfred, a skilled and charming amateur magician who taught me my first card tricks and some sleight of hand with coins (for his prize card trick, a phenomenal version of Torn and Restored Card, he told me he had paid someone $100 for the secret, which was beaucoup money in those days); (3) my cousin Gillie, another fabulous amateur magician who always had an air of mystery about him and by whose magic & mystique I was totally captivated; (4) Jack Adams, a classy and talented magician in top hat and tails who performed on weekends at a local resort in the Poconos across the street from our house up there -my fave trick, the classic white rabbit from the hat - I never missed a show; and (5) Bruce, my sister's boyfriend for a while - unfathomably yet another strong magical influence in my young life. He was skillful, funny and highly entertaining...

performer
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby performer » May 25th, 2017, 9:42 pm

[quote="MagicbyAlfred"]PERFORMER WROTE: "I saw him on a school trip to the Daily Mail Schoolboys and Girls exhibition when I was 14 years old."

Was that when the seed of magic (and/or Graftsmanship) was planted in you Performer? Or, perhaps it had been planted earlier, but seeing Joe watered it, provided sunshine and otherwise cultivated it?

Oh no! I had been doing magic for some time before I saw Stuthard. In fact before I came across him I had seen another performer at the same exhibition. He was performing card tricks on the Thomas De La Rue stand. They were a playing card manufacturer. I have no idea who the magician was but he was not in the Joe Stuthard league. I remember having the audacity to show him a card trick so I must have been doing magic then. But then perhaps 30 minutes later I happened to come across Stuthard and the difference was like night and day.

Grafting came much, much later. And oddly enough my grafting career did not start with the svengali deck at all. I didn't even know it was a grafting product. I sold other products such as bar accessories, Blo-Bloon, kitchen gadgets etc; before I even came across the svengali deck.

performer
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby performer » May 25th, 2017, 9:48 pm

This thread has made me all nostalgic and I thought I would look up the exhibition on google. I was greatly amused to see this come up since I know the felllow in it quite well. That is Sheriff Danny Arnold! He was actually an American who lived in the UK and toured all the same exhibitions I did. He was a showbusiness type and the last time I saw him he put on some kind of Variety show in Great Yarmouth. I doubt he is around any more.

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-daily- ... 31746.html

Oh, and here is a video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VRb77tmoEY

Dave Le Fevre
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Re: The most entertaining card magician I have ever seen!

Postby Dave Le Fevre » May 26th, 2017, 1:30 pm

One of the first bits of magic that I bought, about 55 years ago, was Joe Stuthard's Trilby Deck. The Bi-Co Trilby Deck, actually. Bought it in Gamages.

I really liked it, and I still have it somewhere. I never realised how crudely it was manufactured until decades later when I saw a Svengali Deck with rounded corners.

Dave


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