The person who first saw the advantage of the phrase “Pick [or choose] one for me”, used in the service of equivoque, may never be known. However, we may be able to estimate the age of the ploy from the written record. David Abbott uses it in David P. Abbott's Book of Mysteries, written in the late 1910s through 1934, although not published until 1977; see p. 104, first column.

Another early published example of the ploy is found in Peter Warlock's Complete Book of Magic, c. 1950, p. 108. And one of the clearest explanations of the ploy is by George Blake in Magigram, Vol. 6 No. 4, Dec. 1973, n.p., “George Blake Writes: On This and That”.