D'Amico Change technical question

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erdnasephile
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D'Amico Change technical question

Postby erdnasephile » March 12th, 2014, 11:50 am

I am working on the D'Amico change to unload the bottom card of a double.

I was studying Marlo's take on the move from Expert Card Mysteries, Part I (Alton Sharpe), which uses a top change type left thumb action to help conceal the change.

Question: the stroking action of the left thumb makes sense if the move is used as a overt change, but would be out of place if the change is as a secret switch.

Can the move be done deceptively without the left thumb moving?

More specifically, I want to move directly from a Stuart Gordon turnover to the D'Amico change to unload the double while dealing the card to the table. There is just a hint of motion as the bottom card is unloaded. I'm thinking of letting the left thumb creep over from the side to the upper left corner of the deck. That way, I can bear down with just a bit of pressure with the thumb to help pin the unloaded card to the deck and prevent any movement. This seems to help, but I'm wondering if I'm still doing the move correctly.

If you use this move regularly, I'd very much appreciate your perspective on this (by PM if need be). If you know of a more detailed description in print or video I could research, I'd appreciate that very much as well.

Thanks!

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Richard Kaufman » March 12th, 2014, 4:22 pm

Vernon's technique for unloading the bottom card of a double is much more natural. I don't think the D'Amico change can be made to look nearly as natural.
I published the correct handling of the Vernon move in one of the Vernon issues of Genii.
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Bill Duncan
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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Bill Duncan » March 17th, 2014, 9:44 pm

If the goal is to table the card, there's no need for clever handling.

Flip the card face down on the pack and in a continuing action move the hand holding the pack outward a bit and thumb the card to the table.

It reads as if you are placing the card aside, and that is the most efficient way to get it there.

For a right handed person the card is shown near the centerline of the body and then placed on the table in line with the left shoulder. It wouldn't make sense to use the right hand to do that.

- a guy to spent too much time on D'Amico stuff.

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Richard Kaufman » March 17th, 2014, 9:50 pm

There's no reason to drop the card back, flush, on top of the deck. That's why Vernon developed his handling.
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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Bill Duncan » March 23rd, 2014, 2:58 am

I just gave you a reason Richard. Or a motivation, if you prefer. Maybe I should clarify that by outward I meant sideways away from the centerline not forward towards the audience.

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erdnasephile
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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby erdnasephile » March 23rd, 2014, 8:28 am

Bill Duncan wrote:I just gave you a reason Richard. Or a motivation, if you prefer. Maybe I should clarify that by outward I meant sideways away from the centerline not forward towards the audience.


Bill, I get what you are saying, but wouldn't it be even more natural to simply sail the card to the left (much like a dealer does as they deal around the table?

FWIW, the specific application I'm working on the D'Amico Change for is to put a card underneath a packet of cards that is on the table in front of me.

I haven't found the Vernon reference just yet, but I will.

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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Denis Behr » March 23rd, 2014, 11:48 am

The Genii reference for Vernon's Unload is the December 2001 issue, page 53 "Double Lift and Leave". Other sources are HERE.

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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Bill Duncan » March 24th, 2014, 2:27 am

I prefer the Tamariz technique for unloading the face card of a double, but my point was that it's not really necessary to be that sophisticated in your handing. The method i described attracts no attention, and is perceived as a reasonable way to handle the act of turning a card over and placing it on the table. It does suffer from the restriction that the card needs to be placed to the side of your non-dominant hand (left for right handed folks, right for southpaws like me).

If you're placing a card under a packet at the centerline how about this:
Display the (double) card face up, side jogged and clipped on top by your thumb.
Use the other hand to pick up the packet and fan them face up to show the faces.
Use the face up packet's edge to flip the double down on to the pack and deal it to the table with the dominant hand.
Cover the tabled card with the cards.

Harry Lorayne

Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Harry Lorayne » March 24th, 2014, 10:20 am

Don't know if this "fits" but you might want to check out A Double-Lift Finesse, credited to "Anonymous" in the July 1979 issue of APOCALYPSE - page 222. Harry L.

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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Jon Racherbaumer » March 24th, 2014, 11:58 am

Ah, yes…the D’Amico-type Change!

Although the rambling that follows likely falls under the heading of Too-Much-Information, but when one is faced with whirling factoids and fragmentary info, what’s a researcher to do?

In this regard, interested parties may want to check out my manuscript titled LIPSTICK TRACES?

If not, scroll past the rest of this extended message:

Most students of card technique agree that there are a finite number of ways to reasonably, logically, and naturally handle two cards as one. We may not have reached and explained that number yet, but we are nearing the outer limit. My short manuscript not only suggests this limit, it pleads guilty to the misdemeanor of over-finessing a move. Granted, adherents of the School of Fitting Finesses are always looking for efficient ways to streamline or foolproof techniques; and these little adjustments and tweaks are made in the name of “perfecting our tools.” Critics of this approach file it under “putting lipstick on a pig” or “legs on a snake.”

Perhaps this is the first question to ask and answer?

Is it is better for the turned-down “double” to end up a single card, especially since to accomplish this end, operators must secretly unload the lowermost card of the “double”?

The unproven assumption here is that lay people are able to discern this difference. Does anyone carefully and meticulously scrutinize every action we make? Granted: Sometimes someone may notice how we grip a card and display it. Sometimes the thickness of a “double” is noticed.

For the record, the first person to think about these questions was Stanley Collins, who in 1947 published a technique in A Conjuring Melange. “The Esscee Double Lift” briefly explains (without illustrations or photographs) a way to unload the lowermost card of the “double” without the card(s) completely falling flush with the deck. Students apparently glossed over this item.

This apparently happened again after Dai Vernon’s method for unloading was explained in Further Inner Secrets of Card Magic (1961). The same type of technique was recorded in the Daley Notes.

Scant attention was paid to finessing this technique until “A Double-Lift
Finesse” surfaced (from the underground) in Apocalypse (Vol. 2 – No. 7:
July-1979). When it did, renewed interest was aroused. Although it was
anonymously attributed in Apocalypse, Juan Tameriz is the true originator, devising it eleven years prior to its appearance in Lorayne’s magazine. This oversight was corrected when Juan’s handling eventually appeared in Pabular (Volume 7 - Number 1). Still later, Gordon Bruce, who had devised a similar move on his own, published his “Double Lift Techniques and Variations” in Pabular, as well.

If anyone is interested and can excuse this self-promotion, LIPSTICK TRACES is available for $5 at my Website:

www.realworknow.com


1. CONTENTS
2. INTRODUCTION
3. ESSCEE DOUBLE UNLOAD: Stanley Collins
4. DAI VERNON’S UNLOADING TECHNIQUE FOR A “DOUBLE”
5. DOUBLE TURNOVER CHANGE: Edward Marlo
6. BRAUE DOWNDOWN: Fred Braue
7. A DOUBLE-LIFT FINESSE: Anonymous
8. TAMARIZ TURNOVER: Juan Tamariz
9. DOUBLE LIFT TECHNIQUE AND VARIATIONS: Gordon Bruce (The Stanley Collins Replacement, Razor Lift, A Touch for the Double Lift, Triple Lift Variation)
10. FINESSED THROW CHANGE: Derek Dingle
MIRACLE STEAL REPLACEMENT: Steve Reynolds

Onward…

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Brad Jeffers
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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Brad Jeffers » March 24th, 2014, 1:07 pm

erdnasephile wrote:FWIW, the specific application I'm working on the D'Amico Change for is to put a card underneath a packet of cards that is on the table in front of me.
I haven't found the Vernon reference just yet, but I will.


In addition to to the references already given, the Vernon Offset Replacement is clearly described on Gregory Wilson's Double Take dvd.

I think for you application, the Vernon technique will work nicely.

Rather than placing the card underneath the tabled packet, I think it would be better to pick up the tabled cards with the right hand and place them onto the offset card (which will be atop the deck held in the left hand) and immediately table the packet.

You want a motivation to place the card (double) on the deck. I think the need to pick up the tabled packet is sufficient.

The Vernon Offset Replacement is a beautiful thing, and fun to learn. I learned to do it, but never used it, as I never found an effect where I felt it naturally fit in.

Then I came across The Mona Lisa Card Trick in Mike Skinner's Classic Sampler. This is the perfect trick in which to utilize the Vernon technique, as you need to place the card back on the deck in order to free up the right hand, so it can adjust the "easel".

Harry Lorayne

Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Harry Lorayne » March 24th, 2014, 1:15 pm

Interesting, Jon. When someone contributed Double-Lift Finesse all those decades ago, I asked all the knowledgeable magicians I knew if they knew the originator. Nobody did. And, Juan contributed other stuff for APOCALYPSE after that, we spoke, he even visited me at home where we had a long magic session. Never, ever, did he mention that the item I'd published in APOCALYPSE was his. I would have loved to give proper credit, kept trying to do so, but nobody, including, Juan, ever contributed that information. Interesting. Harry L.

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Richard Kaufman » March 24th, 2014, 1:34 pm

The Double Lift Finesse being discussed was created by Larry Jennings, and recorded by Harvey Rosenthal in a visit to LA in 1967. My own guess is that both Tamariz and Jennings came up with this independently. Jennings explained exactly how he came up with the move, by simplifying a sleight published by Vernon.
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Harry Lorayne

Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Harry Lorayne » March 24th, 2014, 2:23 pm

Again, nobody ever told me these things, including Larry who I'd see occasionally when in Los Angeles. And I was friendly with Vernon, etc. So, for almost half a century, after I published the item, everyone was very secretive re: derivation.

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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Jon Racherbaumer » March 24th, 2014, 5:51 pm

It should be pointed out that when Harry published the finesse in APOCALYPSE it was credited to Anonymous...because Harry was unsure of its provenance. Sometimes sleights back then made the rounds via a clumsy oral tradition. Much was then lost in this kind of transmission-translation. Add the phenomena of "reinvention" and you get a result that generated lots of heat and smoke over the eons.

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erdnasephile
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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby erdnasephile » March 24th, 2014, 6:56 pm

Wow! Lot's of great info here--thanks to all!

The Card College reference that Denis lists says that Vernon used to do his offset unload move, pinning the offset card to the deck with the left thumb. He would then just toss the card to the table with the left hand only. Giobbi also uses this move as an example of an "in transit" type move.

I'll look up the other references later this week.

(PS: Just bought Jon's Lipstick Traces. Look forward to studying it!)

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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby Denis Behr » March 25th, 2014, 4:54 am


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erdnasephile
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Re: D'Amico Change technical question

Postby erdnasephile » March 27th, 2014, 3:11 pm

Thank you, Denis!


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