For me, one of the most enjoyable, yet time consuming, parts of writing a magic book is researching credits. Often, I end up stumbling across a piece of information that has me pulling books off my shelves at shocking speeds in order to get to the bottom of who first created a certain trick, idea of move.

Given the task of providing or checking credits for all magic books that I publish, everytime I stumble across something of historical significance in card magic, I always make notes about it. A while back, I researched the history of the One Handed Riffle Shuffle and knowing that someone, somewhere might be interested in it. They weren’t. So, I thought maybe someone here might be:

The earliest explaination of the move seems to be described by Charles Kalish in Hugard’s Magic Monthly (Volume 3, Number 1, December 1946). The move was described to Kalish by Howard de Courcy and the byline of the article states, “Invented by HOWARD DE COURCY, the famous English magician.” However, De Courcy wasn’t the inventor of the move, as this extract from the Saturday, 28 July, 1962 issue of Abracadabra magazine (Number 861, Volume 34) explains:

“We think the One hand Weave has been traced to its very beginnings. Jack Potter has seen correspondence that passed between Jack Morrison and Howard de Courcy on and about February, 1942, and from this it is clear that Jack Morrison invented the flourish and passed it on to de Courcy. They had plans at that time to publish it as a photographically illustrated manuscript at ten shillings a copy, but wondered how many magicians would then, in wartime, be prepared to pay as much as that for it. So the project was abandoned.”

As far as other handlings are concerned, Senor Notis’ handling is probably the most well known variant. It appeared in Dai Vernon’s More Inner Magical Secrets and appears to be an extension of Jack Miltour’s handling which was published in Dr. Jacques Gery’s French book, Les Principes Brillants de la Manipulation des Cartes (1949). Miltour was able to proficiantly perform the move with two hands.

Gus Southall was the first person, to my knowledge, to publish a one handed false variant, which appeared in Fred Braue’s column in Hugards Magic Monthly (March, 1947). It was just a single paragraph that said:

“Gus Southall writes from England that the One Hand Riffle Shuffle, this magazine, Dec. ‘46, makes a good false shuffle. Riffle the packet held by the thumb and forefinger into the other packet an inch higher so that it protrudes beyond this packet. Shuffle completed, strip out the cards nearest the wrist, which protrude, and deposit on the other packet. It takes a little practice, but is worth it.”

So there then, is a brief history of the one Handed Riffle Shuffle. Also of interest is that the same issue of Hugard’s Magic Monthly may well have been the first place the One Handed Overhand Shuffle appeared. But we’ll talk about that another time. Next time we’ll look at magic tricks using bone marrow.

In a recent article I listed all of the effects that Roy Walton published in British magic magazine, Abra. During my rummage through the magazines, I spotted a few Karl Fulves tricks that I hadn’t seen before. Being a big Fulves fan, I immediately spent the next few hours looking for and experimenting with his magic in Abra magazine. I’ve always found Karl Fulves’ material pretty inspiring, so in hope that a brief description of the effects inspire you too here is a brief a rundown of the Karl Fulves effects from Abra, throughout the years:

A Hofzinser Variation
1st March, 1969. Volume 47, Number 1205. Page 140
A variant of Hofzinser’s Remeber & Forget effect. In this handling three people each select a card. The first person is then asked to pick another card and decide which of the two they’d like to keep. They then hand their discard to the next participant, who decides whether to keep that or his first selection. That discard is passed to the next person, who is asked to make the same decision. Karl then names all three selections. While the effect is certainly simple in method I’m considering adding it to my repertoire as I’m sure that it would absolutely fry any audience.

Think-A-Card
16th March, 1974. Volume 57, Number 1468. Page 210
Instructions for how to make a pretty detailed gimmicked deck. It’s similar to the Ultra Mental deck, but with the cards separated at the start. This allows you to place a odd-backed card into the deck (without anyone seeing it’s face) and have someone think of one of the cards from a spread. Then, you show that the named card is actually the odd-backed card.

Kings Row
30th March, 1974. Volume 57, Number 1470. Page 261
A basic Sandwich routine using two black Kings. Fulves also suggests a challenge to the reader that you might like to experiment with: “As a problem the reader may wish to solve, this basic effect can be elaborated upon as follows: the red Kings and the black Kings are shown separately. One of two chosen cards ends up between the red Kings. The other chosen card then ends up between the black Kings.”

That’s Odd
27th April, 1974. Volume 57, Number 1474. Page 330
An fun transposition routine where someone on your left is given two odd value cards and someone on your right two even value cards. The two odd cards are placed into the card box and are caused to transpose with the even cards. When the participants check the card box for extra cards they just find the words, “That’s odd” written on the case!

That’s Odd
22nd June, 1974. Volume 57, Number 1482. Page 490
A weird and original effect using two borrowed playing cards and two clear plastic sheets. A card, say the Four of Spades is cut into quarters and placed on top of one of the plastic sheets. Another card, say the Seven of Spades, is placed on top of the quarters and then the other plastic sheet is placed on top of that. The condition of the cards is then caused to swap: so the Seven of Spades is now the cut card and the four is shown to be completed restored.

Joe Mckay is compiling a complete bibliography of Roy Walton’s tricks. That’s certainly a difficult task, so in an attempt to help Joe, I thought I’d list all of the Roy Walton effects that I have read in Abra magazine. As my collection of early Abra’s is a decent size, I would hazard a guess that this list is complete until the mid 80’s, where my collection starts to dwindle. Maybe you could post a comment if you’re aware of other Roy Walton effects that I missed.

So, for your entertainment pleasure and to help out Joe, here’s a list of the Roy Walton effects that I know were published in Abra:

So Their Journey Was Necessary
17th May, 1958. Volume 25, Number 642. Page 275
A Queen’s Soirée style effect, but with the added kicker of the Queens turning to Kings at the end.

The Collectors
15th February, 1969. Volume 47, Number 1203. Page 99
Roy’s famous effect. It’s a little different to the effect we know now, but this was the original and the first time it saw print. This later saw print on page 31 of Complete Walton, Volume 2.

Confidence Trick
6th December, 1975. Volume 60, Number 1558. Page 438
Similar to Walton’s famous Smiling Mule, but without the use of sandwiching cards. The first phase of this trick is fantastic, but the other two are a little weak and used to clean up for the first. This also saw print on page 162 of the Complete Walton, Volume 2.

Good Mixers
6th December, 1975. Volume 60, Number 1558. Page 441
This is a reverse Oil & Water effect. Four reds and four blacks are openly interlaced, then magically cause to un-mix. Seconds later their backs are shown to have changed colour. This also saw print on page 154 of the Complete Walton, Volume 2.

Count Me In
6th December, 1975. Volume 60, Number 1558. Page 444
Three packets of four cards each are placed on the table by the performer. The total value of each packets will act as a prediction. The remainder of the pack is split into three unequal heaps and a spectator freely decides which heap he would like to associate with each prediction group. The total number of cards in each packet exactly matches the predictions. This originally saw print in a rare set of Dan Tong’s lecture notes.

Big Deal (1)
13th February, 1982. Volume 73, Number 1881. Page 266
In this effect, Roy deals out four cards in a row on the table. He picks up his card and magically causes them to multiply into a large stack of cards. He spreads through and removes an Ace and King as he says, “If we were playing Black Jack, I’d probably win!” He continues, “And if we were playing Bridge, I’d probably win too!” He shows the cards in his packet to consist of the Ace through King of Hearts - a grand slam!

Dig Deal (2)
27th February, 1982. Volume 73, Number 1883. Page 329
This is based on Big Deal (1), but doesn’t use a stacked deck. Instead, the magician deals out four cards and picks up his card as he says, “I can just look through and find the cards I want!” As he does that, he shows that his single card has multiplied to a whole bunch of other cards.

Update: the contents of Joe’s blog has been moved to Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Walton