The first appearance of this gambling steal in magical literature seems to be in Stanley Collins's Collins's Card Conceits, 1925, p. 29, according to Karl Fulves in Charlatan, No. 2, 2000, p. 20. Other descriptions appear in Harry Lorayne's Deck-sterity, 1967, p. 144, and Stephen Minch's The Vernon Chronicles, Vol. 3, 1989, p. 75.