Conjuring Credits

The Origins of Wonder

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Gardner's Hideout Principle

The idea of concealing cards by secretly reversing them under the deck or a packet, then spreading off groups and displaying them, eventually turning them over and slipping them under the packet until all have apparently been shown, was first described by Martin Gardner in his trick “Vanish and Spell” in Cut the Cards (p. 14, 1942). Nick Trost, in the February 1955 issue of The Linking Ring (“Seven Card Count”, p. 62), published the handling variant almost exclusively used today. Ron Edwards, in “Edwardian Aces” (The Cardiste, No. 11, August 1958, p. 12), applied the principle to retain a stock while seeming to have all the cards shuffled in groups by spectators.