split manipulation tecnique who created?

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split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby marselmarsel » October 18th, 2018, 1:08 pm

i´m searching about thje creator of the tecnique of split fan of cards in manipulation act, this mean make a fan and slip another when you drop the firth fan, te clasic tecnique, may be thuston makes this tecnique but no shure if is earlier tecnique. Thank you

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby performer » October 18th, 2018, 2:06 pm

I swear I read somewhere it was Paul Le Paul. One moment please and I will check.
I have been and I have seen. Alas I was wrong but almost right. He was one of the first to use it professionally but he didn't invent it. He found it described in a British manuscript published it 1916. A vague description but a description nevertheless.

I have no idea which manuscript it was. My psychic powers are limited I am afraid. By all means start an Erdnase type thread about it. At least it might fill up 200 or so pages.

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Richard Kaufman » October 18th, 2018, 8:11 pm

The technique was created by Harmington, who first performed it at the Theater Robert-Houdin. This predates all other references. More can be found in Gaultier's Magic Without Apparatus.
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Max Maven » October 19th, 2018, 6:03 am

No, Harmington is credited with having invented the Back Palm, as early as 1895. The origin of the Split Fan (which, of course, makes use of the Back Palm) is subject to multiple claims. Dai Vernon was quite insistent that the Split Fan was invented by a carnival contortionist named Ardo the Frogman.

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby performer » October 19th, 2018, 8:11 am

It seems this has already been discussed:
viewtopic.php?t=10848

It seems that Richard used to think it was Cardini.
Last edited by performer on October 19th, 2018, 8:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Q. Kumber
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Q. Kumber » October 19th, 2018, 8:12 am

Max Maven wrote: Dai Vernon was quite insistent that the Split Fan was invented by a carnival contortionist named Ardo the Frogman.


Thank you. That's made my day!

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Richard Kaufman » October 19th, 2018, 9:24 pm

Sorry, am in Japan and jetlagged. Max is correct.

I don't believe Vernon's story about Ardo the Frog Man.

The most believable credit I have heard is Cardini having invented it. Buckley claims that he came up with it in, I think, Principles and Deceptions.

The notion that Cardini invented it rings true because he does not do what everyone else who followed did. Watch the footage of his act from the late 1950s and you will see what I mean. The idea that everyone who followed him copied what he did without understanding the subtlety of the action and intention also makes sense.
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Brad Jeffers » December 19th, 2018, 4:57 am

Image

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby MagicbyAlfred » December 19th, 2018, 11:14 am

I suspect Vernon's attribution of the split fan to Ardo was a bull frog story...

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Brad Jeffers
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Brad Jeffers » December 20th, 2018, 4:21 am

"The first time I ever saw Split Fans, which was before I ever met Cardini and probably before Channing Pollack was even born, was shown to me by a fellow named Ardo the Frog man. He was an Australian contortionist who dressed like a frog and acted like a frog all through the act, but his hobby was magic. He did split Fans and I had never seen them before. This was in Chicago in 1919. It's possible that the move originated in Australia, because I knew quite a few very fine card men in New York and none of them had ever seen or even heard about this move."
Dai Vernon ~ December 1969

I believe Vernon was telling the truth when he wrote this.

Thirteen years later, on the Revelations videos, he goes into more detail about how he came to know Ardo and came to be shown the split fans. You can tell from watching the tape that he did in fact know Ardo. There is no doubt about that.

Why would he make up the part about the split fans?

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby webbmaster » February 6th, 2020, 11:18 am

The story I always heard was the one of Richard Valentine Pitchford trying to do single card productions during the war with gloves on, because it was cold. He got mad that the cards kept coming out in bunches !

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Richard Kaufman » February 6th, 2020, 12:03 pm

Harmington predates all other claims and since the fact was recorded in a book in 1914, I see no reason to dispute it.
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby webbmaster » February 13th, 2020, 11:43 am

I think everyone before Pitchford were doing singles, not fans, with backpalm. For example Thurston...singles. The Great Blackstone had a nice routine with 5 singles with some nice subtleties. Channing had this sequence in his act as an homage. No, when Cardini (Pitchford) produced a fan, he wasn't trying to make a fan, he was trying to do singles because that is what everyone else was doing with backpalm. So the addition of gloves was just because it was cold in the foxhole, and the cards coming in bunches (fans) was an accident because of the fabric of the gloves. So, as far as the actual "split" I believe it was Cardini and that he didn't publish it because he was performing it, not trying to teach it. Just because someone invented backpalming doesn't necessarily mean they were also doing fans (or split fans) with it. ?

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Bill Mullins » February 13th, 2020, 12:59 pm

From a 1939 newspaper article about and interview with Cardini:
Once, while he was off duty, he was practicing some card tricks. Because it was bitterly cold, he kept his gloves on. A captain noticed him and thought it was 'dashedly clever' to do the difficult tricks with gloves on. Cardini got the idea of keeping his gloves on all through his tricks and still wears them.

His best card trick, producing innumerable numerable fans of cards from everywhere, was also started accidentally. While experts of former days were able to produce one card at a time, he was unable to get only one and kept getting several at a time. He didn't realize he had accomplished a more difficult trick until the same captain saw him practicing and remarked that he had never seen such quantities of cards brought out at once.

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Richard Kaufman » February 13th, 2020, 1:53 pm

Harmington predates Cardini as well, however it is certainly possible that two people independently discovered split fans.
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby webbmaster » February 13th, 2020, 3:59 pm

I just got an E-mail from Jeff McBride and he definitely remembers Lou Lancaster and Bobby Baxter both told him that it was Ardo the Frog Boy.

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Steve Bryant » February 13th, 2020, 4:00 pm

In the David Ben bio of Vernon, David recounts the story of Vernon's first meeting with Cardini, at a silhouette and magic shop in NYC. In the story, both Vernon and Larry Gray show Cardini split fans, squaring with Vernon's assertion that he knew about split fans before ever meeting Cardini.

Minor confusion: In the above story, David puts it at late July, 1926. In The Vernon Touch, Vernon at least twice mentions his first meeting with Cardini as 1924. Either way, it is later than the 1919 date re Ardo the Frog Man.

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Richard Kaufman » February 13th, 2020, 4:50 pm

Greg, McBride and Lancaster were just repeating what they heard from Vernon, or second hand from Vernon. It proves nothing.
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby performer » February 13th, 2020, 6:34 pm

It must have come from before 1916 since Paul Le Paul first came across it in a British manuscript published in that year. It would be interesting if anyone could put a name to that publication.

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Richard Kaufman » February 14th, 2020, 10:22 am

No one has been able to locate it.
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby webbmaster » February 18th, 2020, 1:37 pm

So Harmington invented backpalming but that doesn't mean he did split fans. Also, are we saying Vernon did split fans ? Just asking. Finally, as nice as LePaul's fans were, he didn't do split fans and fan productions...you know, backpalming, did he ? Finally, Bobby Baxter mentions the Frog Boy too. I still think it was Cardini.

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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Jonathan Townsend » February 18th, 2020, 1:54 pm

Gregg, Vernon left NY before we got started - before Tannen's at 1540 Broadway... so what we heard from back in the 1970s was at second hand.
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Re: split manipulation tecnique who created?

Postby Brad Jeffers » April 30th, 2020, 12:44 am

From the Nov 4, 1914 issue of the New South Wales Police Gazette ...

Sydney --- A warrant has been issued by the Children's Court Bench for the arrest of a man known as "Ardo the Frogman," but whose correct name is said to be Cash, charged with failing to make adequate provosion for the payment of preliminary expenses of and incidental to and immediately succeeding the birth of an infant. He is about 29 years of age, 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high, thin build, dark complexion and hair, clean shaved, blue eyes; dressed when last seen in a brown sac coat, dark vest and trousers, and straw hat; an American; a vaudeville artist. Complainant, Evelyn Wilson, 89 Falcon-street, North Sydney.

Then in the Mar 17, 1915 issue ...

Sydney --- A warrant has been issued by the Children's Court Bench for the arrest of William Cash alias Ardo the frogman, charged with child desertion. He is 29 or 30 years of age, 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high, thin build, dark complexion and hair, clean shaved, blue eyes; dressed in a grey coat, dark trousers, and straw hat; an American vaudeville artist. Complainant, Evelyn Wilson, 71 West-street, North Sydney.

The last mention I can find of Ardo in Australia is his appearance at the Tivoli in July of 1914.

He must have gone on the lam to America, where the vagaries of fate would have him residing at the same hotel as Vernon.


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