About six months ago I had an idea for a trick, essentially it was a signed card changed from a five of spade to a four of spade. You can read my idea for method for this trick here. This is basically the trick “Picking Off The Pips” that I think I read a version of in the Amateur Magician’s Handbook by Henry Hay when I was a kid. The difference is that it’s a signed card.
I was going to make up a card, but time wise never did. Then due to the cancellations of shows due to COVID-19 I was cleaning up my office and found a set of Dry Transfer Decal Card Pips.
This was probably the greatest thing that’s come out of cleaning out the office! Thanks to these I was able to easily make the gimmick for my idea.
The pip I added to the card was a bit smaller than the pips currently on a poker size deck, but I don’t think that will change how the trick works.
The trick hinges on people not being as familiar with a deck of cards as magicians are. I remember as a kid my mom coming home from work and they had a corporate trainer do a thing with a deck of cards. It wasn’t a card trick, but at the end the trainer asked if anyone had noticed anything strange with the cards. My mom was the only one who noticed that the red cards were black and the black card were red. The only reason she caught that is at that time she’d probably picked a hundred cards a week for me while I was practicing tricks. Normal audiences won’t notice.
I’m glad to have the gimmick, unfortunately I there are no audiences to do the trick for right now. I wish I could try it out.