A colossal and stupendous compendium of over 60 years of tricks – brilliant and original tricks with cards, matches, dice, coins, ropes, rings, paper folds, mental magic, sugar cubes, sponge balls, business cards, cigarettes, mathematics and much more. And all are fairly easy to do! You’ll find Martin Gardner’s contributions to periodicals since 1930, separately marketed items plus premium and advertising items he prepared for the public. Hardcover, 400 pages, 230 tricks, 450 illustrations by Richard Kaufman.
Contents:
15 Introduction (Max Maven)
19 Preface (Martin Gardner)
21 Chapter One (With Little Effort)
22 The Clever Innkeeper
23 A Prediction Effect
24 Matching Cards
25 Piano Mover
26 A Slop Shuffle Discovery
27 Affinity of Mates
28 A Simple Reversal
29 A Novel Discovery
30 Marlo’s Aces: A False Cut; Dai Vernon False Cut
32 Criss-Cross Do-As-I-Do: Martin Gardner Method; Hubert Lambert Method; Bert Allerton Method
35 Chapter Two (Ropes Rings Knots On)
36 Improved Hunter Knot
38 Knot Box
40 Ring Off String
41 Chair, Rope, and Ring Puzzle (Manjunath M. Hegde)
42 A Hummer Ring On Cord (Bob Hummer)
43 The Houdini Pen
44 Ring on Stick (Jack Miller)
46 Ring on Rubber Band
50 Scissors Sorcery: The Magic Knot; Chefalo Knot; Cut and Restored
52 Three Rings
53 Rope and Coat Release
54 An Impossible Knot
57 Chapter Three (Reds, Blacks, & Out of this World Attacks)
58 A Red-Black Effect
60 A Trio of Tricks
62 Hummer Plus Weigle (Oscar Weigle)
64 An Oil and Water Effect
65 Out of this World Tip (Paul Curry)
67 A New Way Out of This World
68 Matching Colors
69 Eyeless Vision with the Old One Ahead
70 Spread, Shuffle, Spread
73 Red-Black Shuffles
73 – Overhand Red-Black Shuffles (Six Methods)
74 – Hindu Red-Black Shuffles (Four Methods)
75 – The Center Pull Out
76 – The Center Lever Out
77 – Cutting Colors (A Setup/Effect)
77 – Naming Colors (An Effect)
77 – Pull Out Variations (Marlo and Vernon)
78 – Marlo’s Red-Black Shuffle
79 – Step Version
80 – Use of Bridge
81 – Cut Flourish Version
82 – The Fred Black Shuffle
82 – Step Version
83 – Three-Cut Shuffle
84 – Vernon/Daley shuffle
84 – As a False Cut
85 – A Simple Red-Black Trick
87 Chapter Four (Fidgets, Digits, Jumping Widgets)
88 Impromptu Magic for Small Children: Penny Vanish’ Thumb Removal; Clinging Knife; Swallowing a Knife; Vanishing Salt Shaker; Paddle Tricks; Fly Away Jack; Bug Catcher
91 Coin or Grape Through the Head
92 Fingers-Nose Do-As-I-Do
93 Vanishing Table Knife
94 Watchistry
94 Playing the Numbers
96 Calculator Variations on the 12345679 Trick
98 Paper Christmas Tree
99 Bunnies
100 Movies
101 Snapper
102 Dollar Bill Folds: Blowing Fish; Midget Bill; Mushroom
104 The Jumping Mouse
109 Chapter Five (Compute, One-Way, ESP, 3 by 3)
110 Ideas for Computer Magic: A Card Prediction; Guessing a Word; A Hat Trick; Guessing a Digit
113 A One-Way Trick
114 Torn Corners
116 Gardner’s Unique Principle
119 One-Way ESP Cards
120 An ESP Hoax
121 Crayons and Hat
122 Gumball Clairvoyance
123 Two Tricks with Colored Pencils
124 Some Behind the Back Divinations
125 Clairvoyance Test
132 Are You Psychic?
135 Test Your PK Power
140 Negative PSI
141 A Prediction Square
143 Paradox Papers
144 Paperfold Prediction
147 More on the Paperfold
149 The 3 by 3 Matrix
153 Quant Quirk
155 Chapter Six (Fireman Save My Child)
156 Seven Outs (Bill Simon and Martin Gardner)
157 Match Illusion
158 A Match Color Change
160 Restored Match
162 Strikes Again
163 Stick Up
164 Multiplying Spots
165 Diminishing Spots
166 The Magnetized Match
167 Penetrating Paper Matches
171 Chapter Seven (Spelling, Spittle, Riffling, Gambling, Biddle)
172 Lie Speller
173 Magnetic Lie Detector
175 Ubiquitous Joker
176 Preposterous
178 A Three-Piles Location
179 A Spelling Trick
180 Gardner’s Triple Spell Miracle
183 The Five Torn Cards
184 Where’s the Joker
186 Ten-Card Deal: Original Method; Two Martin Gardner Presentations; Ed Marlo Version; Bert Allerton Versions
189 PUZ and ZLE
190 Indestructible Sequence
191 Yin-Yang
193 Similar Twins (Bill Simon and Martin Gardner)
195 A Biddle Effect (Bert Allerton)
196 The Plunger Principle: The Saliva Plunger; The Subway Trick
199 How to Deal Thirds
199 Draw Poker: Martin Gardner Version; Royal H. Brin, Jr. Version
202 A Phoney Center Deal
203 Chapter Eight (More Sides Than Four)
204 Six Outs for a Die
205 A Mathematical Dice Trick
206 The Rotating Die
207 A Sucker Bet with a Special Die (R. C. H. Cheng)
208 The Thirteenth Turn
209 Odd and Even Dice
211 Die-Vination
212 Dice, Hat, and Matches
213 Drop-Out Dice
214 King James Version
216 Translocated Sugar Lump
217 Cubism
218 The Five-Sided Business Card
221 Passe Passe Sponge
225 Chapter Nine (Probabilities, Possibilities, Bets, Oddities, and Outs)
226 The 1-2-3 Trick
227 Looped
228 The Elusive Ace
229 Thoughts on the Monge Shuffle
232 Seeing Through a Wall
233 Miracle Interlude
234 Fibonacci Fantasy
236 A Betting Swindle
237 Mutus Nomen
238 The Kruskal Principle
241 A Digital Root Trick
242 The Red Prediction: Dai Vernon Version; Martin Gardner Versions
244 Smith and the Numerologist
245 A Geometrical Vanish (No.1)
246 A Geometrical Vanish (No.2)
247 A Bar Bet Prediction
248 Dr. Jaks’ Chair Prediction (Stanley Jaks)
251 Chapter Ten (Small Change)
252 Two Coin Vanishes: Curl Vanish; Pivot Vanish; Paul Rosini Routine
254 Two Penny Stunts
256 Pocket to Cuff
257 Turnabout Coins
258 Poker Chip Faro
260 Tenkai Pennies
262 Penny Tube
265 Chapter Eleven (Laughing Matters and Those Decidedly Otherwise)
266 Silly Putty
268 Yakity Yaks
269 A Swindle from Crandall (Senator Crandall)
270 Four Pips (Senator Crandall)
270 Some Laughs from Bert and the Senator
272 Through the Center
273 Rising Cigarette From Beer Bottle
274 Stretching a Cigarette
275 Multiplying Cigarettes (Jim Herpick)
276 Pop-Up Cigarette
278 The Immovable Cigarette
281 Chapter Twelve (Boiling Crackers & Life-Saving Iced Tea)
282 Boiling Point
283 Spectacular
284 Judah’s Pellet Switch (Stewart Judah)
286 A New Egg Bag
287 Crackers and Arrows
288 Rising Pencil or Card
289 Jumping Rubber Band
290 Some Tumbler Ideas
291 Iced Tea
292 Thimble Transposition
293 The Flying Cigar Band
294 A Borrowed Pen Bit
295 Wand Through Hat
296 Flapping Butterfly
297 Coat Penetrations: Fred Peterson Method; Standard method; Jack Miller Method
300 The Vanishing Pack of Life Savers
301 Chapter Thirteen (With Greater Effort)
302 Allerton’s Crazy Cards (Bert Allerton)
305 Four Aces, Hofzinser Style
306 Ambitious Aces
308 Finger Mnemonics
309 Daley’s Count to Reversed Card (Dr. Jacob Daley): Daley Reverse; Nord’s Handkerchief Variation
311 Jump-Out Card
312 Break Control
313 Charlier Pass Location (Bill Nord)
314 Fingernail Location (Joe Berg)
315 The Wink Change
318 Optical False Cut
319 A Red-Blue Transposition
320 The Five Blues
321 The Oshkosh Trick (Chicke Schoke)
322 Chronometer Cards
324 Card Through Box and Handkerchief (Vernon Pietz)
326 Doc Daley’s Card Through Hanky (Dr. Jacob Daley)
328 Deck Through Handkerchief
330 Si Stebbins Codes The Card
331 A Si Stebbins Principle
333 Two, Six, Ten
335 Chapter Fourteen (Geese, Corn Chips, Lost Women, and Dometic Woe)
336 Promotional Items
338 – Magic Tap-A-Drink Card
339 – What is Your Favorite Dessert?
340 – Lightning Picture Change
341 – Chinese Ho Ho Game
342 – Square and Circle Puzzle
343 – Double Circle Puzzle
345 The Goose that Failed
348 Martin Gardner’s Mother Goose Mystery: American Instructions; British Instructions
361 Cherchez La Femme
364 Blackstone Breakfast Premiums
366 The Magic Colors Trick
367 The Laughing Elephant
368 The Magic Window Trick
369 The Magic Spelling Trick
370 The Checkerboard
371 Chapter Fifteen (The Ones That Got Away)
372 In Praise of Gifts Forgotten (Stephen Minch)
375 A Lost Bit of History: The censored portion of 12 Tricks With a Borrowed Deck
379 Cut The Cards: The original 1942 booklet reproduced in facsimile
399 Appendix
399 A Bibliography of Martin Gardner in Magic (Dana Richards)
415 Articles
416 “Manhattan Magic” (This Week, October 5, 1952)
418 “Eggs-Periments” (Chicago Times, March 24, 1940)
420 “MiniTrix” (1951)
422 “Tricks with Bottles” (Mechanix Illustrated, June 1938)