Conjuring Credits

The Origins of Wonder

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Impromptu Long-Short Deck

The idea of arranging the red and black cards jogged from opposite ends of the deck, so that the pack may be shown all red by riffling one end, and all black by riffling the other, was described by F. W. Conradi in “Rouge et Noir” in Der Moderne Kartenküstler, 1896, p. 69. William Robinson, writing as Chung Ling Soo, would later reinvent the idea in Goldston's Magazine of Magic, Vol. 2 No. 4, July 1915, p. 111. The trick, titled “Wonderful Separation of Cards,” was published without a byline or credit. Will Goldston, in a note in the following August issue, credited it to Chung Ling Soo, p. 133.

The idea of trimming cards to make a deck comprising pairs of long and short cards was in circulation by the 1600s, being adapted quite probably from the Blow Books of the sixteenth century (see Prevost and Scot, both 1584). See Svengali Deck & Ribbon Spread Hideout after Faro Shuffle.