Card Control

Practical Methods and Forty Original Card Experiments

By Arthur H. Buckley

This profusely illustrated book demonstrates step by step the astonishing card magic cultivated by one of the premier sleight-of-hand artists of the 20th century. It presents maneuvers that have left theater audiences amazed and that card-playing professionals have used to great advantage. It is not a book for beginners, but will help those with basic card expertise reach new levels of performance in their art. 
Among the moves are shifts, palms, glides, false shuffles, cuts, fans, and steals. You'll learn how to do the false table riffle shuffle, how to deal from the bottom, how to know an opponent's hole card, how to "warm up a cold deck," and much more. In addition, the author presents forty dazzling deceptions guaranteed to amaze your audience: Confusion, Birds of a Feather, The Ambitious Card, A Brilliant Climax, Your Favorite Ace, A Quickie, The Obtrusive Queens, and many more. Over 300 photographs show the practitioner's exact hand positions during each critical move. 
Australian-born Arthur H. Buckley became well known in America for the magic he worked with cards on the major vaudeville circuits of the 1920s. Schooled by the great sleight-of-hand artists he met in the entertainment business and by professional gamblers he met in his early years touring Australia, his absolute mastery of the most artful and demanding card-handling routines was legendary. In 1946, he wrote this practical guide revealing in detail the secrets of his art. Any magician or card conjurer who aspires to the utmost proficiency in card manipulation will want to have this indispensable reference in his or her library. 

Contents:

Preface by Arthur Buckley
Forward by Harlan Tarbell
Table of Contents

Chapter One: Sleights
12 The Strip
12 A Blind Riffle Shuffle
14 "The Force That Couldn't Be"
15 Domico Double Lift
16 The Exchange
17 Greek Shift
19 Greek Shift - Buckley's Method
19 Hindu Shift
20 Vernon's Multiple Shift
22 Multiple Shift - Buckley's Method
23 Buckley's Slap Shift
25 Buckley's Single Card Shift
26 Shifting a Card from the Bottom of the Pack
27 Improved Dovetail Stock Shuffle to Keep the Top Stock
27 Improved Dovetail Stock Shuffle to Keep the Bottom Stock
28 Buckley's Method of Secretly Placing a Bridge
29 Buckley's Out of This World False Shuffle and Cut
31 Sighting or Glimpsing the Top Card
31 Sighting the Top Card - Second Method
32 Sighting the Top Card - Third Method
33 Sighting the Top Card - Fourth Method
33 Improved Peek
34 Sighting After the Peek
34 Other Locations After the Peek
35 Turnover Sight Location
36 Stepping After the Peek
36 The Slide
38 The Invisible Location
39 Buckley's Reverse
41 The Glide
42 The Glide - Second Method
42 The Glide Location
43 Buckley's Method of Sighting While Fanning the Cards
43 Glimpsing the Bottom Card
45 Buckley's Diagonal Location
46 The Break Shuffle
47 Buckley's Method for Dealing Seconds
51 Domico Location
51 Cardini's Location
52 The Count
53 False Count for More
55 False Count for Less
56 The Side Steal Palm
57 The Side Steal Palm - Buckley's Method
58 Original Methods of Palming Cards from the Bottom of the Pack
60 Palming from the Bottom After the Riffle Shuffle
61 The Perfect Card Palm
62 The Replacement
63 Buckley's Multiple Card Palm Steal
64 Overhand Shuffle and Multiple Shift
65 Buckley's Double Peek Location Shuffle and Palm
67 Buckley's Top Palm Slide Off
68 Berg's Top Palm
69 The Allerton Top Palm
69 One Hand Top Palm - Judson Cole
70 Palm Off the Second Top Card While Top Card Is Visibly Drawn Onto the Pack
70 To Palm Off the Top of the Pack an Exact Number of Cards Up to Ten
71 To Palm One or Several Cards
72 The Fan Location
73 The Fan Location Amplified
74 A Novel Palm
75 Changing a Card in the Act of Turning the Card Over
76 The Throw Change
77 Hindu Shuffle and Cut Location
78 Buckley's Method of Double Cutting Cards to the Top of the Pack
80 John Brown Cook's Transfer of a Card
82 The "Pass"
83 False Shuffle Par Excellence
84 Another Method of Reversing a Card
86 Extraordinary Queens
88 A Different Top Change (mass hypnotism)
89 An Amazing Location
90 One Hand Crimp
91 The Count (Second Method)
91 The Palm Unsurpassed (Original)
92 Bottom Palm of a Single Card (Original)
93 The Top Palm (Improved Method)
93 The Glide Shift

Chapter Two: Conjuring at the Card Table
96 Foreword
98 False Table Riffle Shuffle
99 False Table Riffle Shuffle and Cut
100 The Shift and Shuffle
101 The Push Through Simplified
101 Cut, Riffle Shuffle and Retain the Top Stock
102 Bottom Stock Blind Riffle
102 Retaining the Stock
104 The Switch at Draw Poker
105 Dealing from the Bottom
106 The Cut and Use of the Bridge
107 Restoring the Cut
108 Second Method - The Drop
109 Third Method
110 Bottom Stock Shift
110 Restoring the Cut (My Pet Method)
111 A Cute False Cut
111 Running Up Two Hands
112 The Hold Out and Pick Up Builds
114 Demonstration Build of Four Aces Using the Buckley Double Cuts
115 A Cold Deck Warmed Up
116 The Practical Sharpers
117 Knowing Your Opponent's Hole Card
118 The Spread
118 A Strike (Method of Dealing Seconds)
119 Second Dealing (Black Jack Method)
120 Dealing Seconds (Double Push-Off One Hand)
121 An Original Method of Restoring the Cut (Fourth Method)

 Chapter Three: Manipulations
126 Lighting
126 Music
127 A Vanish of a Card from the Top of the Pack
127 A Back Palm with Open Fingers
128 The Bent Fingers Back Palm and Recovery
129 Production from the Palm
130 A Card Vanishes
131 Push Down Vanish
131 The Thumb Palm Move
134 The Slide Up Vanish
136 A Card Vanishes and Reappears at the Very Tips of the First and Second Fingers
136 Reverse Palming Without Swinging the Arm and Also Without Using the Thumb
138 Fan Vanish
140 A Fan of Cards Disappears
141 Paul le Paul Reversal
143 The Change Over
143 A Very Pretty and Deceptive Piece of Card Manipulation
146 The Steal
147 "Back Palm" a Pack of Fifty-Two Cards and Produce Them in a Series of Fans at 
the Fingertips

 Chapter Four: Experiments with Cards
150 Experiment No. 1 Transposition
151 Experiment No. 2 Confusion
153 Experiment No. 3 Do You See Red?
154 Experiment No. 4 Matching Pairs
155 Experiment No. 5 The Lost Aces
156 Experiment No. 6 The Convexed Aces
157 Experiment No. 7 Charlier Location and Speller Effect
158 Experiment No. 8 Card Through the Case
159 Experiment No. 9 Unexpected Ending
160 Experiment No. 10 Birds of a Feather
161 Experiment No. 11 Simplicity
162 Experiment No. 12 Next to Yours
163 Experiment No. 13 Four Chances - A Novel Card Location
164 Experiment No. 14 Naming the Top Card
166 Experiment No. 15 A Gambler's Aid
167 Experiment No. 16 A Card Gets Out of Hand
168 Experiment No. 17 Difficult Routine
170 Experiment No. 18 Lost and Found
171 Experiment No. 19 Mysterious Marker
172 Experiment No. 20 Black Jacks
174 Experiment No. 21 The Ladies and the Deuces
175 Experiment No. 22 Another Transposition
177 Experiment No. 23 The Ambitious Card
179 Experiment No. 24 The Mix-Up
181 Experiment No. 25 Wishful Thinking
183 Experiment No. 26 Color Memory
184 Experiment No. 27 Think of a Number
185 Experiment No. 28 A Brilliant Climax
189 Experiment No. 29 An Ace Introduction
190 Experiment No. 30 The Aces and the Chosen Card
193 Experiment No. 31 Quintuplets
195 Experiment No. 32 The Slop Over Card Location
197 Experiment No. 33 Card and Pocket Mystery
199 Experiment No. 34 Your Favorite Ace
202 Experiment No. 35 The Double Surprise
203 Experiment No. 36 Chivalrous Kings and the Four Ladies
206 Experiment No. 37 A Quickie
206 Experiment No. 38 Four Aces Par Excellence
207 Experiment No. 39 The Obtrusive Queens
208 Experiment No. 40 The Illusive Transfer

Details: Card Control - Practical Methods and Forty Original Card Experiments

219 pages, soft covers, perfect binding, size: 5 1/2" by 8 1/2".

302 illustrations 

Skill level: Intermediate to advanced. Suitable for ages 18 to adult.