While often credited to Bro. John Hamman, this false display was first described in print by Norm Houghton in Ibidem, No. 1, June 1955, p. 8. Houghton prefaces the display – which isn't a straight Flushstration Count – by referring to the central concept of showing a back or face repeatedly as several different cards as being an “old principle.” The “old principle” he referred to was later identified by Ariel Frailich in a footnote in Houghton's Wit and Wizardry, 1998, p. 55, as Harris Solomon's Hindu Shuffle False Display, published in his trick “Nomolos” in The Jinx, No. 44, May 1938, p. 301. It is easy to see that the Flushtration Count is indeed a packet adaptation of Solomon's procedure with a full deck.

The concept is also used with a stack of three poker chips in “Christopher's Chip Trick,” appearing in Walter Gibson's What's New in Magic, 1956, p. 168.

Also see Hindu Shuffle False Display.