The trick of vanishing a card from the deck by knocking it or touching it subtly with the moistened back of the hand, which secretly picks up the top card, dates back to the Asti Manuscript (c. 1700), within a trick with the translated title of “To cause a card to pass from one pile to another.” This manuscript was translated by Dr. Lori Pieper in the Winter, 2013 issue of Gibecière (Vol. 8, No. 1). It later appeared in Jacques Oazanam's Recréatifs mathématiques et physiques, 1693. See Gaultier's Magic Without Apparatus, p. 12, No. 25.