The strategy of disguising a Pass with the overt cover action of cutting (i.e., lifting) off the top half of the deck dates back at least to the eighteenth century. See Henri Decremps's Testament de Jérome Sharp, 1785, Paris, pp. 95 and 109; and Donato Josef Medrano's Recreaciones Aritmeticas, Fisico-Mathmaticas, c. 1790s, Léon, p. 13.

Also see Goldin Pass.