Conjuring Credits

The Origins of Wonder

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Misdirection Palm

In his “Zeta Four Ace Trick” (see Gems of Personal Prestidigitation [1952], p 24, published in Dawes's Stanley Collins: Conjurer, Collector, and Iconoclast) Stanley Collins describes Marlo's misdirection palm, without attribution. When Marlo published this sleight in 1953 in The Cardician, he claimed he had been protecting the idea for years, and that it had been moving through the underground for a time. It's impossible to say if it got as far as St. Leonards-on-Sea previous to 1952, or if Collins devised it independently. He makes no specific claim of originality for the maneuver. It is simply put to use with no more comment than that it is a “most deceptive, smooth and yet simple sleight.” This statement does carry a hint, though, that he may have felt it his.