Question:

need some help determining who this trick should be credited to. The following effect is how I originally performed the effect. I have a new twist and have updated the handling, but I need to know who the originator was. Surely, I am not the only one to have figured this out. Thanks in advance.

Effect: The magician spreads the deck, and asks the spectator to take half of the deck. The magician draws a card from the spectator’s half and the spectator draws a card from the magician’s half. Both cards are remembered and replaced in their respective halves. The magician asks for half of the cards that the spectator has and places them face up on the bottom of his face down half. The remainder of the spectator’s cards are placed face up on to of his face down half. The magic words are said and the deck is spread to show that all of the cards are now face up with the exception of two cards. The magician names his card and asks for the name of the spectator’s card. The two face down cards are turned over and prove to be the selected cards.



Paul's response:

Scarne on Cards/Francis Carlyle - who did this with sleights, not the non-sleieght method that Scarne included in his book. This, by the way, is true of many of the effects in the Scarne book - he took the sleights out of popular magicians' favorite tricks and substituted subterfuge to make the material accessible to the general public, his target market for his books. Best, PSC