An Introduction To Card Magic

[Quinn22101]

Hi Everyone,

I am very new to card magic. I am 16 and I started card magic about a month ago. I was always fascinated by magic as a kid and would love some help from people with experience on this forum. I am getting "The Royal Road to Card Magic" I am also looking heavily into getting "The Expert at the Card Table" and "Expert Card Technique". I would love some advice as to what other books I should purchase. Also if there is anything else that I should pick up to get my magic hobby off to a good start. I also share a love for history and didn't know if there were any threads for the history of card magic or other articles online where I could learn more. I would appreciate any help you would have for someone starting with card magic. I am excited to become apart of this great community!

 

[Gabriel Z.]

Download this....https://store.theory11.com/products/what-to-read-jason-england Welcome to Theory11!!

 

[Al e Cat Dabra]

Quinn,

That is great! I would advise working your way through the Royal Road to Card magic first, which will give you the fundamentals and some great tricks, as well, and wait until later for the other two books which are more advanced. Enjoy the Royal journey!

 

[CaseyRudd]

Welcome to theory11, Quinn. Great to have you here!

My personal recommendation when starting to learn card magic is to really familiarize yourself with the basic fundamental sleights, as well as a few easy-to-learn self-working card tricks and effects that involve the absolute minimum amount of basic sleights. This is mainly to get your confidence up with handling a deck of cards before you start performing for others, and so you have a good amount of knowledge to take with you when you get into the more intermediate techniques and the effects that go along with it. Here is a list of my favorite books and videos to get you started and so you have a killer arsenal out of the gate.

Books:
Card College Vol 1 & 2 by Roberto Giobbi
Card College Light, Lighter, or Lightest by Roberto Giobbi (3 separate books all containing self working card tricks)
Five Points in Magic by Juan Tamariz (not based around card magic specifically but is a great resource for performing your magic, great theory and aids with the development of how you perform your effects)

Videos:
Double Lift by Jason England (available here on theory11, a visual aid to learning perhaps the most important sleight you'll ever learn, you need to learn this one right the first time)
Move Zero by John Bannon (all 3 volumes are excellent but my personal recommendations are 1 & 2, produced by Big Blind Media. Sort of Psychic and Bannon Triumph are great effects to immediately add to your repertoire)
Ultimate Self Working Card Tricks Volume 1 by Big Blind Media

Just a few things to help get you started on your journey to learning card magic; they've definitely helped me! Please feel free to reach out to me or in the forums if you have any questions. Happy learning!

 

[Simsallabim]

Yo Bro. Kick it ideas left by a right footer. John bannon I haven't seen the rest what's up with that? DB lift waiting for my db, which is invisible, given by John Bannon. I always hold the cards that way....

 

[Simsallabim]

Hi Everyone,

I am very new to card magic. I am 16 and I started card magic about a month ago. I was always fascinated by magic as a kid and would love some help from people with experience on this forum. I am getting "The Royal Road to Card Magic" I am also looking heavily into getting "The Expert at the Card Table" and "Expert Card Technique". I would love some advice as to what other books I should purchase. Also if there is anything else that I should pick up to get my magic hobby off to a good start. I also share a love for history and didn't know if there were any threads for the history of card magic or other articles online where I could learn more. I would appreciate any help you would have for someone starting with card magic. I am excited to become apart of this great community!

Bro, totally just shuffling and every once in a while trying to hide things ... mostly shuffling use the overhand Lennart green as a fake shuffle.

 

[Simsallabim]

You share a love for history and didn't know if there were any threads for the history of card magic. Welcome

 

[RealityOne]

I also share a love for history and didn't know if there were any threads for the history of card magic or other articles online where I could learn more. I would appreciate any help you would have for someone starting with card magic. I am excited to become apart of this great community!

Here are some links to sites that have some of magic's history:

http://geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/Main_Page

http://www.conjuringcredits.com/doku.php​

This is a link to a site that is helpful in researching the history and variation of effects:

http://www.conjuringarchive.com​

For books on the history of magic, check out Jim Steinmeyer's Hiding the Elephant and The Last Greatest Magician. There also is a great book, Magic 1400 to 1900s by Cavney and Steinmeyer. You can also find free legal downloads of books by David Devant (they are out of copyright) like Our Magic and My Magic Life which are some of the first publicly available magic books.