Conjuring Credits

The Origins of Wonder

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One-handed Top Palm

Johann Hofzinser had a one-handed palm that was crudely described in Ottokar Fisher's Kartenkünste, 1910, p. 44 of the Sharpe translation. Another early technique was L'Homme Masqué's method, which was used for both single and multiple cards, appearing in Camille Gaultier's Magic without Apparatus, 1914, p. 91. Walter Gibson also published a method – albeit an awkward one using the forefinger – in The Sphinx, Vol. 17 No. 12, Feb. 1919, p. 232. But the common technique still used today, of the right hand arching over the deck to press down with the little finger on the front-right corner, was published by John Elrick in The Magic Wand, Vol. 19 No. 145, Mar. 1930, p. 48.