I am going to get a new book series soon, and these were the two finalist. When it comes to cards, I have a very good background with them, and already know most of the moves in Card College, but I would also like to see their versions. I wanted to know which book series everyone thought had the better tricks, or the ones that are more practical to perform. I have heard nothing but good things about both of them. I like coin tricks, so I am leaning toward AoA, but one of my friends said that some of Card Colleges card tricks were unbelievable, so I am at a stand off between with one is better, and I hoped some of the magicians on here could help me.
Rob Pond

I realize the two collections are comparably priced, but you're really comparing apples and oranges.

Card College is a comprehensive course in sleight of hand card magic. As such, it contains over a hundred professional-strength card effects, in addition to all of the information on sleight of hand, theory, presentation, etc. I think you would be doing yourself a disservice by merely scanning the table of contents and figuring that you "already know" most of the sleights. Giobbi teaches you what you didn't know you didn't know, and besides, the books are worth it just on the strength of the effects alone. No matter what level you think you are, get volume one and go through the entire series thoroughly. You won't regret it.

Roberto Giobbi had all of card magic's history, its best minds and most important plots to explore when writing Card College. Whereas Art of Astonishment is a delightful, but uneven (in my opinion) collection of just one man's work. It has many card effects, most of which are gaffed. The best of Paul Harris' card effects do rise to the level of the effects in Card College, but Card College definitely has many more usable card effects than AofA, by a factor of perhaps ten. As much as I love Paul Harris' work, I can think of only a few card effects from AoA that I might find actually useful. Whereas Card College has dozens upon dozens of effects that cycle in and out of my performances. Both in terms of sheer numbers of effects, and especially practicality (almost all of the effects in CC are impromptu), Card College gets the nod easily.

Scorch, thank you for the advice. You said that in AoA most of the card effects have gimmicks. I was not aware of this. Are the coin effects gimmicked too. I don't really like to work with gimmicked objects, I prefer to do magic with my own skill.
Rob Pond

However, a lot of the "gimmicks" that are used can be made easily on your own. Paul Harris is a creative genius. Depends what your looking for. New effects to incorporate into a routine or show? Definitely AOA. Looking to better your card magic in general, CC. that's the choice you have to make.

Cody

If you are looking to a full coverage of card sleights accompanied with some effects, go for Card College.

If you are looking for a collection of purely effects (all 222 of them), not only involving cards, but also apples, leaf and coins go for AOA. It is fully explanatory and it is definitely worth the price.

If you are feeling generous, get both!

It depends what you want. Either a very comprehensive course in card magic or a large variety of different types of effects with many contributions and some funny stories.

apples vs. oranges
AOA vs. card college

Pond Wizard- there are too many coin effects and other effects to generalize that that they are gimmicked. Some are some aren't. I wouldn't judge the quality of the book that way.

its just personal preferance

I disagree with your assessment. I think that Card College has way more and way better card magic effects to incorporate into your routines (though several of the card effects in AofA are downright awesome). But of course it's a matter of preference. Personally, I prefer not to use gaffs, and although there are a few great impromptu effects, the majority of the material in AofA relies on gaffs. And also, practically everybody and their mother are doing Paul Harris effects these days.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy Paul Harris' magic and these books. But the effects are not consistently good (some are just plain stupid), and I think the collection as a whole is somewhat overrated. If there were a single, much smaller book with just the "best of" Paul Harris' card magic, that indeed would be a great little book.

Yes, a lot of the coin effects are also gimmicked. Some are, some aren't, but without looking I'd estimate that over half of them require gimmicks or gaffs of some sort. Most of the effects in the books are devilishly clever and it's an enjoyable read in any case. But if you don't like to use gimmicks I'd spend my money elsewhere at this point if I were you.

I like to make the bun float off the top of the cheseburger.

All the best,

Kranzo

I'm purchasing both at the moment. On card Colelge 3, and AoA 1. I'd suggest you go with card college. Like you I THOUGHT I knew a lot of cards, but Giobbi has really made me work on getting a better foundation and improving some of my old handling.

I have AoA book 3, and friends of mine have books 1 and 2, and I highly recommend them. I haven't read card college, so I don't know much about that, but I will tell you everything I know about AoA.
This is one of the best products I have ever purchased, I use about 20% of it everyday (just from one of the books), and a lot of the third volume is ungimmicked, and it is just really interesting and fun to read. So many ideas, ploys, tricks, ideas, everything. Paul Harris is an incredible creator of magic, so my choice would be AoA. If you already know the moves, build on them, make the magic so much stronger, AoA is the way to go. But that's just my opinion.

Sean

Sean, the OP asked for a comparison between Card College and Art of Astonishment. If you yourself don't even have Card College, you simply have no basis for comparison. I mean, if somebody asked me whether The Grapes of Wrath or East of Eden were better, and I had only read The Grapes of Wrath and not East of Eden, it would be pretty silly for me to tell him that The Grapes of Wrath was superior, simply because it was the only thing that I'd read, right?

I would recommend to YOU that you start working on Card College, from volume 1, irrespective of which moves you think you "already know."

Card College is a great resource of card sleights. This is what I use the series primarily for. There are great tricks at the end of each chapter as well and are used to demonstrate the sleights in action.

With that said, I'm still finding gems in AoA. Recently at an IBM meeting, I performed PH's version of "Out of this World" called "Galaxy". Many of the fooled magicians were surprised to learn that it came from a series many of them owned.

I'd say I probably perform more effects out of AoA, but I'm constantly reviewing and working on new sleights from Card Collge.

I know it's probably cheaper when buying the series in a bundle, but if you're still having trouble deciding you could always buy a book from each and then determine which series you want to continue. (And you'll get plenty of stuff to work on from just one book)

-Eric D.

I have all 5 volumes of CC. Much later I picked up AOA vol. 1. I still have only the first volume of AOA. The 5 volumes of CC get more mileage. Does that tell you something? When will I get AOA 2 & 3? Only time will tell. BTW, I have picked up other books since that purchase of the 1st AOA. Just my $.02.

<<<KRaZy4KaRdZ>>>

About a year and half ago I thought I had a good handle on a lot of the slieghts covered in Card College. I was really hesitant to by a set of book about things that I had already mastered none the less on the back of some good advice I purchased the first in the Card College Series. Now this takes you right back to how to hold the cards. The improvement in my magic since beginning the Card College course has been phenominal I didn't even realise how badly I was performing my sleights and Giobbi really covers every aspect and how to do every slieght well in every way. I can't say enough about Card college.

However, I have also recently invested in AoA 3. Now this book does have a lot of gaffed tricks but it also has a few impromptu trick. Regardless of whether it uses gaff or is impromptu they are all flooring tricks.

Finally, I would say that Card College has some absolutely mind bloggling tricks right from the word go, I like the Acrobatic Family and Metamorphisis. When I bought AoA I didn't like the idea of using gaffs either but it is fun to do some arts and crafts for magic and these gaffs that you make aren't just any gaffs they are really good ones. My final answer get Card College first study it throughly this will give you a good stead in the impromptu tricks that way when you get AoA later you wont mind using the gaffs in it as much because worst case scenario you always have your impromptu tricks to fall back on. Good Luck!

Moyle