Untouched

A place where beginners can participate, ask questions, and post their views. However, beginners typically ask a lot of questions about sources, tricks, books, and so on. In fact, all magicians are interested (or should be) in the provenance of tricks, ideas, and related matters. This department will service these needs.
User avatar
Brad Jeffers
Posts: 1221
Joined: April 11th, 2008, 5:52 pm
Location: Savannah, GA

Re: Untouched

Postby Brad Jeffers » March 20th, 2020, 12:23 am

Brad Henderson wrote:The goal is to not ever touch the cards. Hence the name. However in practice most real people have difficulty spreading the cards and interpreting which card the magician is pointing to. So touching the cards - especially to make clear which card you want them to remove - is hard to resist.

Here's a tip.

When you get to the part where your card is to be removed and placed on the table, reach into your pocket and take out a pair of tweezers. Re-emphasizing that you "never touch the cards", use the tweezers to carefully extract the card from the spread.

This gets a laugh, but just as importantly, it allows you to keep your promise!

Brad Henderson
Posts: 4547
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: austin, tx

Re: Untouched

Postby Brad Henderson » March 20th, 2020, 2:15 am

Clever

Philippe Billot
Posts: 1820
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: PARIS - FRANCE

Re: Untouched

Postby Philippe Billot » March 20th, 2020, 5:48 am

About tweezers, John Bannon has a good idea in his book Impossibilia. See page 113...

El Mystico
Posts: 1087
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: Leamington Spa
Contact:

Re: Untouched

Postby El Mystico » March 23rd, 2020, 6:36 am

For those interested in the history, here are some related items.
Bill Simon in his Sleightly Sensational (1954) has The Mathemagician, which uses the dealing principle to get two spectators to produce the four Aces.
Scarne on Card Tricks (1950) has My Lucky Card, attributed to Simon, where the suit of one card and value of another are used to make a new card - but the method is different.
So Simon had the two elements, but didn't put the two together. At least not in print.

Finally, the Daley Notebooks Volume 1 (probably 1935 - 1937) has '661 Scarne Card Gag – Making a New Card' (that's all it says). Clearly this is not enough detail to know what Scarne was doing, but I've not come up with anything else it could have been than a variant of this trick. (Bill Simon would have been about ten at this time)

Brad Henderson
Posts: 4547
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: austin, tx

Re: Untouched

Postby Brad Henderson » March 23rd, 2020, 10:11 am

I learned the trick from pabular - attributed to Tony Faro. Was from one of the early issues.

Dave Le Fevre
Posts: 365
Joined: December 24th, 2015, 10:29 am
Favorite Magician: Paul Megram

Re: Untouched

Postby Dave Le Fevre » March 23rd, 2020, 12:06 pm

Gosh, that's a name from the past. Tony and I were work colleagues in the 1960s and 1970s.

User avatar
Paco Nagata
Posts: 436
Joined: July 3rd, 2019, 6:47 am
Favorite Magician: Juan Tamariz
Location: Madrid, Spain.

Re: Untouched

Postby Paco Nagata » May 6th, 2020, 6:33 am

Apart from the referece about Tony Faro in Pabular I would like to remark that Nick Trost said to have come independently with the same idea, which is in the compilation "The Card Magic of Nick Trost" with the title of "Spectator's Card Trick.”
"The Passion of an Amateur Card Magician"
https://bit.ly/2lXdO2O
"La pasion de un cartómago aficionado"
https://bit.ly/2kkjpjn

User avatar
Paco Nagata
Posts: 436
Joined: July 3rd, 2019, 6:47 am
Favorite Magician: Juan Tamariz
Location: Madrid, Spain.

Re: Untouched

Postby Paco Nagata » May 6th, 2020, 6:57 am

Ryan Matney wrote:
Mr. Charming wrote:Ryan Shlutz has a method to perform this effect where at the end the spectator can chose what card points the "value" and what card points the "suit"


I have a couple variations that also have this feature.

In 1994 I came with an idea for the end of this trick related to allowing the spectator chose what card points the "value" and what card points the "suit."
It is not exactly about letting to choose, but a funny and surprising or unexpecting final:
At the end part of the trick you can say, "authoritatively", that the card on the left side will point the suit and the right side one, the number. And, that's it, the trick works.
At this point, spectator may be amazed, but may feel as well that the magician chose the order, so spectators may not take very seriously that particular order of "reading" the prediction.
However, the trick does not finish yet...
The magician says: "now that the trick is over, please, give me back my magical powers".
So then, both touch their index fingers (like ET) and the magician is the magician again.
At this point, the magician notice that the ORDER of the "prediction reading" must have change, since now the left side card and the right side card are the opposite from the point of view of the (now) magician. So, there are certain mystery about it... Everybody look at the (face down) prediction card, again...
The magician ask for turning it over and, surprise!
The prediction card changes to fit the new way of reading the prediction!
I have this idea described in my amateur card magic book with the title "Role Exchange" p.246.

I hope you understand may explanation... :?
"The Passion of an Amateur Card Magician"
https://bit.ly/2lXdO2O
"La pasion de un cartómago aficionado"
https://bit.ly/2kkjpjn

User avatar
Chas Nigh
Posts: 213
Joined: March 24th, 2008, 10:45 pm
Location: California

Re: Untouched

Postby Chas Nigh » May 8th, 2020, 11:57 am

AT THE TABLE LIVE LECTURE STARRING RYAN SCHULTZ The Future Card 2018 is a good start.


Return to “Reference Room”