Attribution Needed

Discuss your favorite close-up tricks and methods.
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Tom Frame
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Attribution Needed

Postby Tom Frame » September 1st, 2018, 1:42 pm

Learned gents,

Despite my searches, I can't track down the name of and creator of the following holdout/switch twingy. I humbly request your assistance.

You hold a packet of, say, eight face-up cards. Unbeknownst to the crowd, four face-down Aces (or whatever cards you wish to force or switch) are beneath the face-up cards. You pick up each face-up card, display it, turn it face down and place it on the bottom of the packet. Eventually, a face-down card appears on top of the packet, indicating that you're back to the first card you displayed. In reality, the four Aces are on top, ready to be secretly introduced for whatever purpose.

Thanks,

Tom

Bob Farmer
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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Bob Farmer » September 1st, 2018, 3:47 pm

Martin Gardner devised the basic principle used to hide cards in that manner in his effect, “Vanishing and Reappearing Card,” (pp.20-22, 12 Tricks With A Borrowed Deck, L.L. Ireland, 1940).

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Tom Frame
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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Tom Frame » September 1st, 2018, 4:34 pm

Thanks Bob!

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby JHostler » September 1st, 2018, 4:37 pm

There's another Bob thread on this, but in recent years that tactic was reignited by PH's Las Vegas Leaper.

I strongly suspect, with no evidence whatsoever, that something so basic predates Gardner by several decades.
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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 1st, 2018, 6:17 pm

Lynn Searles used that principle as a force (Jinx 1936) and later on as a change/vanish method in his Cannibal Cards.

Where do we draw a line between between the open card turnover display and the older/classic "faciing the pack" switch where you secretly turn over the pack?
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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby MagicbyAlfred » September 1st, 2018, 7:50 pm

Jonathan Townsend wrote:Lynn Searles used that principle as a force (Jinx 1936) and later on as a change/vanish method in his Cannibal Cards.

Where do we draw a line between between the open card turnover display and the older/classic "faciing the pack" switch where you secretly turn over the pack?


Different means to achieve the same or similar ends. Although a significant advantage I can think of re the SearleS and/or Gardner ploy is that, once the 8 cards (or whatever number) are displayed face-up, the packet can be squared and handed to the spec to do the dirty work, and build greatly heightened conviction. This is precisely the ingenuity of Paul Harris' method in the first phase of his, as JHosler noted, Las Vegas Leaper.

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Philippe Billot » September 2nd, 2018, 8:02 am

Jonathan Townsend wrote:Lynn Searles used that principle as a force (Jinx 1936) and later on as a change/vanish method in his Cannibal Cards.


You make a reference of the Lynn Searles' Cannibal Cards marketed in 1959 but do you know if this trick has been explained in a book or magazine?

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Bill Mullins » September 2nd, 2018, 11:37 am

Philippe Billot wrote:
Jonathan Townsend wrote:Lynn Searles used that principle as a force (Jinx 1936) and later on as a change/vanish method in his Cannibal Cards.


You make a reference of the Lynn Searles' Cannibal Cards marketed in 1959 but do you know if this trick has been explained in a book or magazine?


The Magicpedia entry on the trick lists a number of places that it (or variants) have been published.

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Philippe Billot » September 2nd, 2018, 11:57 am

Thank you Bill but I speak about the original. All I know is that Searles used a gimmick because after eating cards, the cannibals eat some little objects like paper clip or rubber band.

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby MagicbyAlfred » September 2nd, 2018, 12:54 pm

Legend also has it that one night when the cannibals were having dinner together, one of them announced, "I hate my mother-in-law!" --

-- to which one of the others responded, "So try the potatoes."

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 2nd, 2018, 2:05 pm

Philippe Billot wrote:Thank you Bill but I speak about the original. All I know is that Searles used a gimmick ...
It uses that count where you turn over a card and put it on the bottom.
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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Philippe Billot » September 2nd, 2018, 5:13 pm

First add in The Linking Ring, Vol. 39, no. 3, March 1959, page 131.

Excerpt:

THE CANNIBAL CARDS
(They Eat Things!)

"They eat razor blades, coins, gum wrappers, paper clips, matches, bills, cigarette butts, rubber bands, and anything else you feed them- including the envelope they come in!
If particularly hungry they even eat each other!"

etc...

If anyone has the original explanation of the trick, thank in advance.

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 2nd, 2018, 11:53 pm

With the original item in hand: The trick uses a small packet of cards. The instructions walk you through the procedure. If you follow the instructions you might even surprise yourself. Without spoiling the fun for you - the counting procedure, and that packet of cards, does the work.
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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Bill Mullins » September 3rd, 2018, 1:20 am

MagicbyAlfred wrote:Legend also has it that one night when the cannibals were having dinner together, one of them announced, "I hate my mother-in-law!" --

-- to which one of the others responded, "So try the potatoes."


Legend also has it that the cannibals wouldn't eat clowns --

-- because "they taste funny."

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Philippe Billot » September 3rd, 2018, 3:04 am

Thanks for everybody.

Now, I know TWO jokes

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Peirceman
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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Peirceman » September 3rd, 2018, 6:29 am

When I read the OP, I instantly thought ATFUS by Marlo.

Am I wrong?

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Philippe Billot » September 3rd, 2018, 9:58 am

ATFUS was published in 1964.

There are a lot of switches before in which cards are back to back or face to face at the beginning.

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 4th, 2018, 10:59 am

Tom Frame wrote:... You pick up each face-up card, display it, turn it face down and place it on the bottom of the packet. ...

ATFUS allows you to count the packet without flipping any cards over.
Mundus vult decipi -per Caleb Carr's story Killing Time

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Philippe Billot » September 4th, 2018, 11:44 am

And you can switch any card of the packet.

Any Time Face Up Switch

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Re: Attribution Needed

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 7th, 2018, 7:21 pm

Forgot to ask about the rest of the deck - whoops.
If the deck is face down below the face up packet you want to display - the action also reads like the Hartman Secret Subtraction
http://www.conjuringcredits.com/doku.ph ... ubtraction
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