Conjuring Credits

The Origins of Wonder

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Chosen Card Found Reversed in Pack

This trick appears in El bruho en sociedad by Juan Mieg, 1839, “La Carta Vuelta”, p. 99. The method is to palm the selection from the deck and let the spectator shuffle the pack. Then, in taking it back face up, secretly add the selection, reversed, to the underside of the pack. A Pass is then used to move the card to the center of the deck, where it is revealed.

Edwin Sachs published a more concise handling in Sleight of Hand, 1885, p. 104, under the title of “The Reversed Card”. The method is a Half Pass of the selection, followed by a Pass to center it in the pack.

The effect also appears in Stanyon's Magic, Vol. 4 No. 3, Dec. 1903, p. 31, titled “Chosen card Found Reversed in Pack”. The method is that the selection is returned to a deck that is secretly turned face up under a face-down cover card. The later variation of a spectator's selection and the magician's both turning up was contributed by Walter B. Gibson to The Jinx, No. 77, Jan. 1940, p. 505, under the title “Double Reverse.” However, another two-person version was conceived by Jack Vosburgh in the 1930s and was eventually published in his booklet More Than a Trick, 1941, p. 14, titled “About Face.”