A description of this sleight may have been intended by the anonymous author of an unpublished notebook circa 1800 held in the Magic Circle Library. Will Houstoun transcribed this notebook and published it as The Notebook, 2009 (see entry 27, p. 29). Technical details concerning the actions of the card switch are absent, which leaves open the possible interpretation of either a Bottom Change or a Top Change. The former is more likely, given the period in which the notebook was composed, but ambiguity in the description leaves open the possibility of a Top Change being intended by the author.

The Top Change first hit the published page in Jean-Nicholas Ponsin's Nouvelle Magie Blanche Dévoilée, 1853, p. 37. This early description already has the modern finger grips in use, with the right hand's card both starting and ending between the right index finger and thumb.

See also: Bottom Change and Top Change with a Packet.

• Category in Denis Behr's "Conjuring Archive"