On Your Mark

Effect: A selected card is located within seconds.

Secret: With a soft black pencil draw a diagonal line down both sides of a pack of cards. When you show the trick, you remove the cards from the case and ask someone to take any card, remember it and return it anywhere in the pack. Pick up the pack and look at your pencil mark. At one point there will be a small back mark out of alignment with the rest of the line – that is the chosen card.

Anti-Gravity Cards

Effect: Several playing cards adhere to your hand, until you tell them to fall off.

Secret: You need to make a special card. It is simply an ordinary card with a tab cut from another card attached to its back. The special card is first placed face up on your palm and the tab is gripped between your fingers. Arrange some more cards between the special card and your hand as shown. Turn your hand over and the cards will appear to be sticking to it – until you let go of the tab.

Aces Discovery

Effect: You hold a shuffled pack behind your back and locate the four Aces

Secret: Secretly remove the Aces from the pack. Push them into a paper clip which is pinned to the inside of your coat at the rear. When you want to show the trick, hand the pack to someone to be shuffled. When the cards are returned to you, hold them behind your back and say you are about to attempt the impossible. Secretly remove the Aces from the hidden clip and bring them forward one at a time as if you have searched through the pack for them.

Food And Drink

Effect: From cards bearing the names of foods, you pick out the odd card on which is written the name of a drink.

Secret: You need six blank cards, one of which is fractionally longer than the others. Hand five cards to spectators and ask them to write down foods. The long card is handed to someone with the request that he write the name of a drink. The cards are mixed up and handed back to you. Without looking you immediately pick out the drink card. You can detect it quite easily by touch.

Clip The Card

Effect: A spectator tries to put a paper clip on the centre of a group of five cards but fails.

Secret: Glue five playing cards together. The card in the centre should stand out from the rest. Show the cards to a spectator. Hand him the clip and ask him to put it on the centre card when you have turned the cards face down. He puts the clip on the centre card. When you turn the cards face up the clip is actually on the end card! The trick works by itself – but there is no need to tell your audience that!

Crafty Catch

Effect: Two pre-determined cards are caught in mid-air.

Secret: Secretly place the Seven of Clubs on the bottom of the pack and the Nine of Spades on the top. When you do the trick, remove the Seven of Spades and the Nine of Clubs from the pack. Show them briefly and push them into the pack. Throw the pack in the air but keep tight hold of the top and bottom cards. Pretend you have caught the two you now hold. Show them triumphantly and everyone will believe they are the two cards you placed in the centre of the pack earlier.

Your Card Is …

Effect: You tell a spectator the name of a card he chose.

Secret: Spread a shuffled pack face up to show they are well mixed. Remember the bottom card. Turn the cards over and ask a spectator to take one. Ask him to remember the card and then place it face down on top of the pack. Cut the cards a few times. Spread the cards before you. The selected card is the next card to the right of the one you remembered earlier. Pretend to read the spectator's mind and reveal the card selected.

Changing Card

Effect: A playing card changes value magically.

Secret: You need an Ace of Clubs, a Queen of Hearts and one other card. Score across the centre of the Ace and the Queen and glue them together for half their length. Use the third to form a back to the special card. Hold the card in your left hand with the flap pointing upwards. Pass your right hand over the card and, as you do so, push the flap down to its lower position – and the card changes.

The Ghostly Card

Effect: A playing card vanishes when placed in a glass tumbler.

Secret: You need a piece of clear plastic the same shape and size as a playing card. Place this on top of a pack of cards. Cover the cards with a handkerchief and apparently remove the top card in the handkerchief. You actually take the sheet of plastic. Show a glass tumbler and ask a spectator to push the card, still covered by the handkerchief, into it. Whisk the handkerchief away and the card has vanished. Being transparent, the plastic cannot be seen from even a short distance away.

Card Code

Effect: You identify a chosen card.

Secret: Place nine cards on the table. The suits do not matter but the values must be the Ace to the Nine. While you are out of the room, someone chooses any one of the nine cards. When you return, you know immediately which card has been chosen because you have a secret assistant who holds a pack with a Nine showing. They secretly indicate the value of the chosen card to you by the position of their thumb over one of the nine pips.

The Ninth Card

Effect: You divine the identity of a selected card.

Secret: This is how to make someone take the card you want. Secretly place the card you decide to use ninth from the top of the pack. Ask someone to call a number between 10 and 20. Count that number of cards, one at a time, from the pack. Add the digits of the chosen number. Deal that number of cards off the cards just dealt. Ask someone to look at the next card. It will be the card you placed at ninth position. You can reveal it in any way you wish.

In The Red

Effect: You instantly identify a selected card.

Secret: Place all the black cards on top of the red cards and you are ready. Spread the cards face down and ask someone to take any card. Make sure he takes one from the top (black) half of the pack. He then replaces it anywhere in the pack but you make sure he replaces it somewhere in the bottom (red) half of the pack. Look through the cards and somewhere in the red cards will be one black card. That is the chosen card. Remove it and show it to everyone.

Calculated Discovery

Effect: You remove cards from your pocket to the value of a chosen card.

Secret: Put the Ace of Clubs, Two of Hearts, Four of Spades and Eight of Diamonds in your pocket. Have the pack shuffled then put it in your pocket. Ask someone to name a card. The four cards you hid can represent any card. For the Six of Clubs you take out the Four and the Two to make six and the Ace to show Clubs. For the Queen of Diamonds take the Eight and the Four to make 12 and point to the Eight of Diamonds and so on.

Marvellous Memory

Effect: You appear to memorise the order of a pack of cards.

Secret: Cut a small hole in the bottom right corner of your card case. Ask someone to shuffle the cards and hand them back to you. Look through the cards quickly, then place them in the case. Hold the case in front of you and you will see the index of the first card through the hole. Name this card and pull it from the case. Do the same with a few more until you think you have proved that you really did memorize the order of the cards.

Change The Ace

Effect: The Ace of Spades changes to the Ace of Hearts.

Secret: Place the Ace of Hearts and the Ace of Spades on top of the pack. Turn over the top card and show it is the Ace of Spades. Place it back on the pack face up. Push the two top cards a little to the right, so they overlap the edge of the pack by one centimetre. Throw the pack firmly down on the table. Air pressure causes the two top cards to turn over and the Ace of Hearts will now be face up.

Red Or Black?

Effect: From a pack of cards spread face down on a table, you are able to tell which are red cards and which are black.

Secret: First separate the reds from the blacks. Bend all the red cards upwards. Bend all the black cards downwards. Mix the cards together. Spread all the cards face down on your table. Throw them down haphazardly and then invite a spectator to mix them up even more, so it is obvious they are not in any special order. Ask people to point to different cards and you can tell them if they are red or black by the way they bend.

The Mystic Seven

Effect: You predict which pile of cards a spectator will choose.

Secret: One a piece of paper, you write: "You will choose the Seven pile". The paper is then folded and given to a spectator for safekeeping. You now take several cards from a pack and arrange them in three facedown piles. The three piles are formed as follows: Pile One: Any seven cards. Pile Two: The four Sevens. Pile Three: An Ace, a Two and a Four (which add up to seven). A spectator is given the choice of any of the three piles. Whichever pile is chosen the prediction is always correct.

Card Off

Effect: A card escapes from a string.

Secret: A card and an envelope have a hole in their centre. The envelope is secretly prepared with a slit at the bottom. Put the card in the envelope but secretly push it part way out of the slit. This is hidden by your hands. Seal the envelope. Push the string through the hole. Secretly push the card back into the envelope. Ask two spectators to each hold one end of the string. Cut the bottom off the envelope and pull out the card. It seems that the card has penetrated the string by magic.

Royal Flush

Effect: Five cards change into a Royal Flush.

Secret: Take the Ten, Jack, Queen and King of one suit and cut them in half diagonally. One half is glued on to one of four other cards of any value and suit. Add an Ace to the group and fan out the cards. It looks like five ordinary cards. Lift the cards so the backs are towards the audience. Take off the Ace and show it, as you secretly turn the other cards end for end. Replace the Ace and then let everyone see the faces. They have changed into a Royal Flush.

Turn Over Card

Effect: A chosen card reverses itself in the pack.

Secret: Spread the cards face down and ask a spectator to take any card. While he is showing the card to the rest of the audience, secretly reverse the bottom card then turn the whole pack over in your hands. Walk towards the spectator and ask him to replace his card in the pack face down. As you walk back to your table, turn the reversed card face up and turn over the whole pack again. All the cards are now face down with the exception of one card – the one the spectator chose.