theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Where Can I Find This?

Seth Hughes

Seth Hughes

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Jun 21, 2018
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I Was preforming for a friend recently, And he told me about an effect where the Magician had him pick a card, loose it in the deck, the then sprang them into the air. All the cards then landed on the ground face down except for one, (build suspence... oh no what card could it be?... will we ever know?) The selected card! ( BOOM BIG REVEAL!)

I have no idea where I can find this effect. Or if it exists at all. Any help is deeply appreciated.
 
A lot of times a story someone tells of an effect a magician did is Far better than what was actually performed.
This happens quite often in magic. It is quite possible your friend unknowingly missed telling you part of the effect or added something that never happened.
 
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CWhite said:
A lot of times a story someone tells of an effect a magician did is Far better than what was actually performed.
This happens quite often in magic. It is quite possible your friend unknowingly missed telling you part of the effect or added something that never happened.
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If that is the case, then now I have an idea for an amazing original effect!
 
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I'm not saying that is what happened. It just seems to me like something is missing.
I need to remind you, I'm definitely no expert. Perhaps @RealityOne can help more than I can. I believe he's answered questions for Houdini and Jesus lol
 
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There are a lot of versions. Shin lim published shinag which is the more flashy version. Michael obrien teaches a version of it free in his youtube channel. Mark calabrese published grab via ellusionist which uses a dribble instead of a spring, but is one of the cleanest versions , ... . There are a lot of versions with different methods, but you can create your own method as well.
 
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CWhite said:
Perhaps @RealityOne can help more than I can. I believe he's answered questions for Houdini and Jesus lol
Click to expand...

It was actually Moses and the double lift followed by the springing thing with the stone tablets didn't quite turn out that well.

Seth Hughes said:
I have no idea where I can find this effect. Or if it exists at all. Any help is deeply appreciated.
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As others have said, there are a variety of ways to do this.

The earliest reverse card effect I can find in print in English s in T. Nelson Downs's Art of Magic, but that one was an old one back there. There also are a significant number of reversed card effects in Encyclopedia of Card Tricks. However, none of those involve springing the cards up into the air, rather merely spreading the deck. Those methods would be able to be used more in dribbling the cards to the floor where there is little risk of the cards changing position

I can think of only one surefire way to do this based on the springing "up in the air" which would require rifling the deck to select the spectator's card and none of the cards would be examinable.

Mr_ARPY said:
There are a lot of versions. Shin lim published shinag which is the more flashy version. Michael obrien teaches a version of it free in his youtube channel. Mark calabrese published grab via ellusionist which uses a dribble instead of a spring, but is one of the cleanest versions , ... . There are a lot of versions with different methods, but you can create your own method as well.
Click to expand...

None of those have the all of the cards landing on the floor with only the selection face up. However, my favorite effect in that vein is Hit the Deck in Scarne on Card Tricks.
 
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Seth Hughes said:
This particular version involves springing the cards in the air, and having them all land on the ground face down except the spectators, which is face up.
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It's the same version. Angel, Vernon and the others could have performed it on land but chose to perform it on water for more dramatic effect.
 
edweibe said:
I'm pretty sure I've seen it somewhere as well. It was a street magic routine but I can't recall the performer. I might have been David Blaine.
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David Blaine performed a similar but different effect. But I can't describe it without giving the effect away.
 
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