About 50 years ago Paul Harris put out the Paul Harris Vanishing deck. This is the vanish of a full deck of card. Well, almost a full deck of cards, here’s what it looks like:
@louiefoxx This is 50 years old! #cardtrick #magictrick #cardmagic #disappear #vanish #gone #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
The weak point of the trick is the card that’s removed. I guess if you gave the trick context, like that’s a chosen card then it makes more sense. The improvement with the trick came about 20 years later was when Steve Bedwell put out Reboxed.
@louiefoxx Card trick from 30 years ago! #cardtrick #cardmagic #magictrick #cards #magician #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
The huge improvement that Steve gave the trick was context. The deck didn’t disappear it went through the box! That change in effect from a vanish to a penetration also cleaned up the weak point of having to remove the card from the deck.
Then about ten years ago they improved the Reboxed gimmick to clean up the handling.
The new gimmick made the handling a little bit cleaner.
That’s a 40 year evolution of the Paul Harris Vanishing Deck! This is a good example of why nothing should ever be considered finished.
-Louie