The Genii Forum

Hi All,
I wonder if anyone knows who is credited with creating the trick What's Next now advertised under a variety of names such as Hoppin Dots?
Thanks Umpa

The trick where spots move around on a large flat card or die goes back a long way. Originally the spots were on threads.

I believe (but would be happy to be corrected) that Akira Yamada, founder of the Tenyo Company, created the metal version (both large card and die) using black magnetic spots in the late 1960s.

I would like to add that were playing card size cardboard versions of the effect with printed pips but no movable ones. Therefore, you could only do the 1, 4, 3, and 6 sequence but nothing more and no climax. I believe that they were circa 1950's but not certain.

Thanks so much for the help. I really appreciate it.
Umpa

I am not totally sure but I though I read somewhere that it is a domino that is being manipulated.

Angelo Carbone has a neat 3-D version called "The Nine-Sided Die".

Matt Field

I still remember sitting in the audience of "It's Magic" as a kid and watching Terry Seabrooke.

When he pulled out the spot card, I was thinking: "Oh, I know this one." When he was done, my mind was completely blown by his killer finish. Too bad his routine never saw print.

If memory serves, I think David Copperfield used (uses?) this trick as an emergency trick for if something goes wrong in his show and he needs to fill time.

erdnasephile,

You're right. I saw DC doing his routine 20 years ago and I recall that it was really good. I often use this as an example when I tell people how David Copperfield is a great magician and that he can take a common magic store item and make it much better than anyone else.

Umpa Duze wrote:Hi All,
I wonder if anyone knows who is credited with creating the trick What's Next now advertised under a variety of names such as Hoppin Dots?
Thanks Umpa

Credit might go to the guy who invented that two pipped three - to be shown as an ace or a three depending.

Does the trick with the double sided prop predate the Die routine? If so - where?

Here are a couple of variants from Ken Allen's catalog, early sixties:



http://littleegyptmagic.com/dots.jpg

I am pretty certain that the basic concept dates well before the sixties. The pip card I mentioned was older than that. Unfortunately, I cannot determine the time period. My best guess is the fifties or earlier.

It reminds me of the "pick a card" phrase. Who first said that?

We've gone back to the times of Sachs, Rotterberg, Hoffmann and on our away back to Robert-Houdin - a ways before the nineteen sixties.

Steve Bryant wrote:Here are a couple of variants from Ken Allen's catalog, early sixties:

http://littleegyptmagic.com/dots.jpg

From looking at old Linking Rings on AskAlexander, it looks like "Daffy Dots" came out around Dec 1956/Jan 1957, and "Dizzy Diamonds" from Spring 1955.

If someone asked me what three tricks I have performed more than any others, my answer would be WHAT'S NEXT, PROFESSOR'S NIGHTMARE, and SCOTCH AND SODA (in one form or another).

Believe it or not, I was STILL using the same WHAT'S NEXT I purchased when it first came out until recently. I decided to retire it and break open a new one.

You really can't beat the classics.

Still looks like someone decided to duplicate the Sachs routine with a die using a deland (or hofzinser) type card - but showing the thing openly as an odd prop.

How about the "spinning arrow" item - about the same time frame?

I am interested in whether there are any versions using a metal surface and magnetic dots prior to 1967. Does anyone know how the earlier versions work? I'm thinking they're just cardboard or wooden dots on threads or sliding in grooves.

The item as done with a playing card - going from ace to four to three to five to nine of diamonds appears in New Era Card Tricks

http://books.google.com/books?id=R-URAA ... &q&f=false

This seems to put the routine structure, handling and mechanical aspect dating back to 1900 or before.

Harry Stanley used sell the version using a large white board and diamond shaped pips. The extra pips were attached with threads and moved along them, so they always ended up in the right position.

In my opinion it is superior to the magnetic version as the Stanley version simply looked like a giant playing card.

It was a staple in the repertoires of many professional magicians in the UK and Ireland.

It is advertised in The GEN, July 1956 as POP EYE PIPS priced at £1 or $4 and I'm sure it was in the Stanley catalogue well before that. Back then you got a lot more dollars for your pound sterling.

It sounds like the one JT mentions makes use of the flip down card method. That allows for a climax.

The finale of the routine as written in the Roterberg book item is a blank both sides card.
Perhaps The diligent performer was expected to have those sides decorated to suit the occasion.

Richard Kaufman wrote:I am interested in whether there are any versions using a metal surface and magnetic dots prior to 1967. Does anyone know how the earlier versions work? I'm thinking they're just cardboard or wooden dots on threads or sliding in grooves.

The sliding pip cards in Roterberg (and also Conradi's "Der moderne Kartenkünstler", from which a lot of Roterberg's material seems to have come) use thread and presumably cardboard pips, but the one Jonathan mentioned (from Roterberg) is the kind that involves covering blank spaces with your fingers, as in What's Next. The basic idea for that goes back to Guyot's "Nouvelles Récréations mathématiques et physiques" (1769), which describes the ace to three change with the addition of an extra pip of another suit stuck on with soap. This means you can show the Ace of Spades, then scrape off the spade pip and show the Ace of Hearts and finally the Three of Hearts.

I understand about the printed playing card with apparently six sides--it's in Hoffmann. I'm only concerned with that advance upon that, which is moving the pips around so there are actually three (or one), and then six (or four) and then eight and ten spots where the dots are magnetic. (Thanks Quentin!)

Richard, Here is another make, in metal and therefore probably the same method, and also probably later. This is from a Magic, Inc. catalog #20, whenever that was.

http://littleegyptmagic.com/domino.jpg

In the Abbott's catalog #20 (also no idea what date; wish the dealers had dated their catalogs), What's Next sold for $3.50. The domino trick shown above sold for $8.00.

Steve, look at the books in your Magic Inc. catalogue: what's the last-published book listed. That's how you can tell when a catalogue came out.

The "Devilish Domino" was also in Magic Inc's #19 catalog. This catalog was circa 1969. It listed for only $5 at that time. A Top Hat Magic Company catalog dated 1971 lists the effect as Dinamo (What's Next) and was also priced at $5.

Different trick, but same method: "Domi-No" by Tom Barker, Abra #1131, September 30, 1967.

When did the thin vinyl covered refrigerator magnets start getting popular?

Asking as that's about when the material became available for tinkering.

Flocking (glue then static charge then fiber coating), IIRC became available a little later.

On the square prop side, I'm curious if there's mention of the card-as-die presentation from before the actual die and sleight of hand item got into print.

Ben Stone [Delben] made the Delben Domino which was [and is] a great prop I have used in many CLE presentations over the years because of the "loophole" finish. If you have one, you know what I mean. If you don't, one of the dots becomes a hole in the domino at the end. There is always a "loophole" to talk to lawyers about. The only disadvantage is the hand movement to move the dots which has to be justified. Eugene Burger discussed this issue at his lecture at the IBM Convention in Phoenix this year. Ben had a great justification to disguise the hand movement that I have always used, based on the false explanation of the working of the domino.

Richard
My uncle used a version purchased in the early 50's that was an approximately 8 by 11 sheet of metal painted white and red card board poker chips with magnets glued in hollows in the chips for the moving dots. The stationary dots were split poker chips that were glued to the metal sheet. I have no idea who made the item and my uncle has been gone for 25 years. However it certainly predates the 1967 date.
Doc

Thanks, Doc!

Just a small note - at work there's a device used to magnetize some metal parts. It's old. Checking the patents on the technology - https://patents.justia.com/patent/9275783 making magnets goes back to the 1860s. So little thin bits of magnetic material were not impossible even back when Hoffmann was writing. At a guess it was the flexible material (think magnetic recording tape but much thicker) that got us those refrigerator magnet/business card items back around 1960. Perhaps it was the combination of flocking and magnetization that made the item sufficiently cost effective to manufacture?

Does anyone have a copy of Louis Tannen Magic catalog number 2 (1955)