GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN - ISSUE 25

Revisiting Vintage Effects

WELCOME TO CARDOPOLIS

A big hello to readers old and new. This newsletter features more vintage magic worth exploring. The tricks range from a divination system that enables you to reveal a thought-of card, a presentation for the same effect, a peculiar monte move with packets of cards. and an unusual method for a red black ace transposition. As always you can find all past issues of Cardopolis free to view online. Here is the link.

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THE BUDDHA WHISPERS

‘One of the finest and cutest effects it has been my good pleasure to come across.’ This is how Joseph Ovette described The Buddha Whispers. He marketed the trick in 1933 saying the idea was first shown to him by his former employer the stage hypnotist Professor Santanelli. That trick was probably a version of A Mathematical Problem from Hatton & Plate’s Magicians’ Tricks - How They are Done (1910). You’ll find more about that in Ramo Samee Revisited which comes later. But what really interested me in Ovette’s version was the presentation.

Ovette set a small Buddha figurine on the table. A spectator thought of a card. Any card. Ovette then asked a few questions about the card though not any that seemed to lead to its identity. For every answer, the spectator is given a coin from the Buddha. Finally, the Buddha whispers the name of the card to the performer.

The revelation of a thought-of card is a strong effect but Ovette’s presentation with the figurine, the coins, and the whisper was entertaining and memorable. It was also a good way to dress up what is a mathematical trick along the lines of The Mysterious Age Cards. But then I thought, what if the trick wasn’t mathematical? What if the trick was as devious as Ovette’s Svengali-like boss, Professor Santanelli, a hypnotist notorious for his use of trickery? Let’s call this devious idea Santanelli’s Secret.

The Buddha, coins, and deck look good on a shelf, waiting for some curious person to ask, ‘What’s that?’ I got the Buddha figure from Amazon. It’s a tea-light holder, the little basin providing a place to put the coins. The coins also came from Amazon where they are described as Chinese Good Luck or Fortune Coins, and a hundred can be had for a fiver. You can buy excellent gaffed decks from David Diamond in the UK or The Slim Card Co in Canada and the US.

The trick is designed to lead any mathematically inclined spectators, magicians included, down the path of Hatton & Plate’s A Mathematical Problem where they will be met by a dead end. There have been some interesting variants of The Buddha Whispers over the years. U. F Grant chimed in with Monte Carlo. Instead of answering yes or no to the questions, the spectator answered Monte or Carlo. Poker chips were used in lieu of coins and the presentation had a gambling flavour. The trick inspired Max Maven to create a gambling presentation for his own Zen Poker (Thequal, 1984). Between those two tricks lies an interesting effect by Dai Vernon. Which brings us to Ramo Samee.

RAMO SAMEE REVISITED

Dai Vernon streamlined the mathematical underpinnings of A Mathematical Problem when he published Ramo Samee’s Card Trick (The Sphinx, April 1944). The trick has no connection with Ramo Samee, an Indian juggler, but Vernon said that this is how his friends called the trick. Hatton & Plate’s trick used a 32-card deck. Vernon said his version was the first to use a 52-card deck. Actually, Stanley Collins had already published a 52-card version in The Magician Monthly (June, 1926). The virtue of Vernon’s trick was that he simplified the method considerably and rather ingeniously. Having said that, I’ve committed a heresy and tweaked the method a little further in the version that follows.

The principle harks back to the old Mysterious Age Cards trick but if you’ve never used a binary system of this type, you might want to watch this video which explains how the system works.

I apologise in advance for the explanation that follows. It’s a touch tedious. But, it’s a good trick. If you like it, check out Dai Vernon’s original in The Sphinx, which seems to have been overlooked, as does the fact that in addition to the divination it also incorporates a poker deal.

HONEST JOHN MONTE

Talking of overlooked items, here is one from Stewart Judah. It was published in Walter Gibson’s The Conjurors’ Magazine (August, 1947). Judah said the sleight was used by gamblers in a game in which you bet on the value of the bottom card of a packet. This game was known as Honest John. You’ll also see it referred to as Blind Hookey. This intrigued me because I’d read of Scarne having an effect in which he successfully wagered on the bottom card of a packet. It also reminds me of a technique used by Vernon to produce aces on the face of four packets of cards. That too had its origins in the gambling world. See Given the Slip (Vernon Chronicles, Vol 3, 1989). I played with the Judah idea. As you can see for yourself, it’s tricky but does work.

You can add an extra moment to the trick by revealing the other three aces on the faces of the packets at the finish. All you need to do is initially cut, or arrange, the packets so there is already an ace at the face of each. The Ace of Spades, covers one ace which is revealed when the Ace of Spades is secretly transferred to the rear of the centre packet. Hope that makes sense.

DON’T GET MAD NOW!

Frank Lane had some good ideas as well as funny lines. This one is from his book They’re Off (1935). It makes use of the same move that Vernon uses in his Ambitious Card routine (Stars of Magic, 1949). Vernon uses it as a sucker move. The only person I ever saw use this move was my friend John Lenahan.

I’d always thought the move might be Vernon’s even though he didn’t claim it. Then I found it in Greater Magic (1935), also in an Ambitious Card routine but with no credit given. Recently I found the move in Jack Merlin’s Here, There and Everywhere (Merlin’s Master Miracles, Part 3, 1928). And was even more astonished to see that the first part of the text in Greater Magic is a copy of the text in Jack Merlin’s book. How it got from Jack Merlin to Greater Magic I don’t know.

Another pal, John Fealey, describes this as ‘one of those grabby moves.’ I know what he means. Vernon said it looks suspicious, which is why he used it as a sucker move. With that in mind, I’ve tried a different handling to make it more fluid. See what you think.

Frank Lane’s trick resembles Dr Daley’s The Cavorting Aces (Stars of Magic). I’ve never really liked the plot of that trick, testing the spectator’s powers of observation and then proving he’s wrong. However, if we go back to Erdnase’s The Acrobatic Jacks (Expert at the Card Table, 1902), we find a less confrontational story about training playing cards to do tricks.

Erdnase described The Acrobatic Jacks as follows, ‘This trick is one of the very best of those not requiring sleight of hand.’ And then says you need to do one-handed and two-handed shifts to perform it. He must have been damn good.

CHARM OR CHALLENGE?

In the last year or so, the subject of The Fred Card Trick has come to my attention. Phil Lawson sent me a link to his article on Joe Riding’s version of the effect, which you can read here. And Richard Wiseman showed me a new version of the trick that he had worked out.

There’s a long history to what became known as The Fred Card trick in the UK. But often the trick began as a challenge. ‘Would you be amazed if I could name your card?’ said the magician. The magician then makes good on his claim by saying, ‘I name your card Fred!’

Sometimes this presentation can be too aggressive. The claim can seem like a bet and, if not handled well, can alienate the audience. I think we’ve forgot the roots of this trick and the presentation that Don Alan used when the trick was marketed as Fido, by Ken Brooke, in 1975. Instead of a challenge, Alan frames the plot in terms of miscommunication. I post it here as an example of how dramatically a trick can be changed by altering the script. What a superb presentation.

FINALLY

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David