First published by Edward Marlo in Marlo's Magazine, Vol. 1, 1976, p. 25.

The origin of this sleight has been confused by differing recollections. Scottish card magician Gordon Bruce reported having spent several days in 1975 in Los Angeles, where he showed the Unit Upjog Addition to Ricky Jay, Larry Jennings and others. Bruce moved on to Chicago, where he showed the sleight to his friend, Edward Marlo. Marlo published the sleight in 1976 without mentioning Bruce. Bruce chose not to air these memories in print, viewing the situation as an oversight. Accepting Bruce’s recollection, Richard Kaufman credits him with the sleight in Mr. Jennings Takes It Easy, 2020, p. 82.

However, Ed Marlo presents a different history of the sleight in a twenty-four-page letter to Harvey Rosenthal, dated June 9, 1986 (see pp. 3-5). Marlo dates the start of the evolution of the the Unit Upjog Addition in 1964. In 1969, Marlo showed the handling he eventually published in 1976 to Bill Simon. With all parties now dead, further verification of details seems impossible.

A clear precursor to this sleight is found in “The Burglars: A Story Trick” in Jean Hugard's Card Manipulations, No. 1, 1933, p. 10. This uncredited sleight injogs the desired cards, rather than outjogging them, and it lacks other refinements described by Marlo; however, the central concept of the two sleights is the same.

Using a similar, simpler dynamic to the Unit Upjog Addition (although more limited in its application), a packet may be secretly loaded under the last of a small number of cards that are outjogged as they are arrived at while spreading through the deck. This sleight was first published in The Tarbell Course in Magic, Vol. 5 (1948, p. 122), where it is described within the context of “Paul Rosini's Ace Transposition”. In Frank Csuri's 1961 unpublished manuscript The Magic of Charles Earle Miller, which gathers correspondence between Miller and Faucett W. Ross from 1930-1960, this addition idea is said to be Miller's; see p. 47, “26. The Four Aces and Four Jacks”. Csuri dates only some of the letters, and this one is not in that group. However, it falls directly after a letter that is dated 11/24/31, and the next date given (on p. 52) is 1/20/43. So the likely period of the letter in question is the early 1930s to the early 1940s. Miller's claim to the sleight is furthered by his opening comment about it: “Paul Rosini called this 'wonderful' […]” This simple upjog addition is also credited to Miller in Jacob Daley's Notebooks, published in 1972, p. 192. The entry, “718. Charlie Miller's Modified Vernon Strip-out”, was made by Daley in his fourth notebook, with entries spanning Sep. 1940-1944.