The concept here is that the performer doesn't tell a spectator what to do with a freely chosen item until he (sometimes secretly) learns which item the spectator has chosen. An early (perhaps the earliest) use of this principle occurs in Ned Rutledge's "Hot Damn!", marketed in 1970. Rutledge's effect involved distributing several small objects in a spectator's pockets.

In 1995, a similar idea, “VI$A Cabaret”, using a gaffed wallet, was marketed by Stephen Tucker.

Anverdi's "Color Match" marketed no later than 1982, uses six colored markers in a gimmicked holder and relied on an electronic signaling system. When Howard Schwarzman added this Anverdi prop to his line of European products, he included a routine of his own, “Psychromatic Miracle”, which applied the principle of Equivoque Distribution of Items and additional ideas. ProMystic's “ColorMatch”, marketed in 2010, adopted these ideas with updated and advanced electronic gimmickry; see Genii, Vol. 81 No. 5, May 2018, p. 93, for information about this item.