Le Paul Spread crediting

[TeeDee]

I'm sure most people know this already, but as I always see the "Le Paul Spread" credited to Paul Le Paul, I thought I'd mention it. In "The Card Magic of Le Paul", which is accepted as the first written description of the spread, he mentions the flourish only in the context of his description of his spread pass. He doesn't claim to have invented the spread, and in fact explicitly says that it was a well-known move to many magicians at the time. It's only become known as the "Le Paul Spread" in the same way as a lower back clip with a coin is sometimes called the "Goshman Pinch". Neither move was invented by the eponymous magician, but their name has become associated with it because they popularised it, or described a particular use for it.

It's not a big deal, but I just thought I'd throw that bit of info out there just in case someone's interested.

 

[JamesAV305]

Thats interesting. thanks for telling us. But do you know if he actually credits the person that created the spread? Or is that something lost in history?

 

[TeeDee]

As far as I know, it's lost in the mists of time. He just says it's a common flourish, so I reckon it's just one of those things that circulated from magician to magician by word of mouth. It's like the split fan production. A lot of people think that Cardini invented the move, because he popularised it, but it was invented by a contortionist called Ardo the Frogman and shown to Dai Vernon. As Ardo wasn't really a magician, but just happened to have that one technique, it would probably never have been published or heard of if he hadn't happened to meet Vernon in a hotel in Australia. Chances are the "Le Paul Spread" was invented by someone we've never heard of, and who didn't really have any interest in publishing it. It's probably only now, with the advent of the internet, that we can have a permanent record of the who, when and how of new techniques, and no shortage of forum-posters to correct any erroneous crediting.

 

[UnknownEnemyZero]

Not necessarily, you can always invent something that's been printed way before you decided to create it. It's a common occurrence. Better to leave things as discoveries and not inventions.

 

[TeeDee]

Yeah absolutely. Pretty much everyone who plays with cards has stumbled across ideas that they think are original, and then later turn out to be claimed by someone else (usually Ed Marlo...and a lot of his "inventions" are open to question). However, if someone publishes something and claims it as their own these days, then magic forums can act like a patent-attorney, and there'll always be someone who can find any similar ideas in the literature, if they exist. I think it's fair to call some things "inventions" though. Any invention could also be called a discovery of some property or other.

 

[RichmanMatthew]

I never knew that. Thanks for the information.