Card Apparitions are always welcome and seem to have a great appeal among magicians. I have something similar in my routine Nobody At Home (written elsewhere in this book) which is done on the table. The following variation is done entirely in your hands. It can be used as an Ace production or as a selected card production. Either way I hope this small item will find a place in your act or in one of your routines. Do not forget to take a look at the short but effective trick at the end of the basic move. You’ll like it!
Effect
A card is stuck into the middle of the deck and left side-jogged. The fingers of the left hand bend this card sharply which causes a portion of the deck to spring up. This portion makes a revolution and lands face up revealing an Ace (or perhaps a selected card)!
Performance
Let us imagine that you want to produce an Ace. Have the Ace on the bottom of the face down deck. You may want to give the deck a brief shuffle and perhaps a couple of False Cuts, leaving the Ace on the bottom. Grip the deck from above in the right hand (Biddle Grip) and with the right forefinger Swing Cut (also called Swivel Cut) the top two thirds of the deck into the left hand (leaving in the right hand the bottom third). See figure 1 of the previous trick (By Mistake) for the action of the Swing Cut.
The left thumb is brought onto the top card of the left hand portion and it swivels this card to the left so that this card ends up crosswise on the deck. The right hand then drops its cards on top as in figure 1. The card just moved remains protruding to the left. Directly above this card you have the Ace or the card you want to produce. The left thumb rests along the left short side of the protruding card and the left fingers are steady at the long eight side of the deck and in contact with the right short side of the protruding card (and the whole deck). Study figure 1 again and note the position of the thumb and fingers of the left hand.
Sharply push the left thumb down on the edge of the protruding card, so that the side-jogged card bends and causes the top third of the deck to spring up in the air. (When the left thumb pushes down on this card, the motion is to the right toward the left fingers.) The top third will make a half revolution and will land face up onto the left hand cards (directly onto the side-jogged card) revealing the Ace (the final position is similar to figure 2). The right hand never takes action during the above moves but it approaches the deck now, which is in the left hand, to remove the top third or the selected card. Easy and effective.
Notes
I think that you’ll get the hang of it in just a few minutes and you’ll see how easy it is.
A brief effect with the move: Have two cards selected and control one on top and the other on the bottom. Perform a Double Turnover (i.e., the right hand takes the top two cards of the deck as one and it turns them over face up on top of the deck) revealing an indifferent card. Turn the double card face down and perform the entire move as explained. The first card is revealed by the top third that flips face up. The second selected card is revealed by turning over the side- jogged card that has now changed into the selected one.
