I need a good foundation in card magic and sleights. And I plan to get Jason England's "Foundations", but before I spend that kind of money, I think I want a better foundation.

So I'm wondering. Should I pick up Royal Road to Card Magic? (I hear this is a must-have, and it looks very promising.)
Should I also pick up Expert Card Technique?

+some Tally Ho's (just because I've never used them before.)



Thanks in advance.


Also, sorry for posting it here, but I remember it was either a free like Pen Thru Dollar or a secret Pen Thru Dollar or something like that. Does that still exist? And if I also remember correctly, wasn't there some sort of free discount code to get like 10% off or something? Is that, also, still around?

Royal Road
Expert card technique is good but not really meant for beginners.

I can't recommend Card College enough.

-ArchAngel_G

How about Scarne on Card Tricks?

Stick with the foundations. RRTCM or Card College is a great way to go. The tricks will come later.

Hi Flappy2,

Hats off to you for wanting to learn the art and not just the newest coolest looking thing. Foundations wise, I'm a big believer in the classics, so here are my suggestions

Royal Road to Card Magic - classically the book recommended to beginners. It's not as comprehensive as the Card College tomes, but it's an excellent place to start.

Card College 1-5 - Also a good place to start, it's comprehensive, and importantly it has a good progression - starts with easier slights and builds up on theory and towards more difficult sleights. They cover quite a bit of ground. The effects have a 'spanish school' influence to them.

Expert at the Card Table - this is the single most influential book on card magic written in the last century. Published first in 1902, it is still considered the 'Bible' of card technique. Since its publication, almost all of the techniques described remains the golden standard. It is dense, the descriptions are concise, and it is sometimes difficult to read given the style of prose, but it is the most important book you will pick up on card magic.

Expert Card Technique - I hesitate to recommend this book because of its history. Hugard and Braue, who wrote the books, were not really privy to most of the sleights and effects described. Much of the material is attributable, but not credited to Dai Vernon, Jacob Daley, Charlie Miller and Jack McMillen. The authors simply hung around these giants of card magic, and in some cases, plagerized, and in other cases, conjectured at their methods. This resulted in an interesting book. Some of the material is absolute gold, but some material are merely unworkable conjectures. Despite this, Expert Card Technique is still considered as one of the classics in card magic, though it does need to be read with a careful eye. In my opinion, save this book for later when you develop a more critical eye for good material, and is familiar enough with Vernon's work to distinguish certain items as essential and others as trivial.

A few other books you should consider:
Dai Vernon's Book of Magic / The Vernon Chronicles / Inner Secrets Trilogy - Vernon was the most influential magician of, well, probably ever. You simply cannot do any effects and sleights now that have not in some way been affected by Vernon's input into magic. Unlike Marlo, Vernon did put most of his best work into print (though often ineptly described by Lewis Ganson...), it is worth studying. In terms of value of the material, I would place these books probably the highest on my list next to Erdnase.

Revelation - Vernon's commentary on Erdnase. Recently republished with additional material contributed by David Ben. Vernon and Erdnase together in one book, need I say more?

A note on Jason England's Foundations. While this is a VERY good resource, I think it is rather advanced for someone starting out in magic. Most of the sleights taught on the DVD are easier to grasp once a good understanding of the basic principles of card technique is obtained.

Despite the myths, although Tally Ho's are printed on different machines than Bikes, the paper stock and the finish is identical. They don't handle any different. Having said that, I've got a soft spot for Tally Ho's - somehow I've always found naked angels riding bicycles on my cards to be slightly disturbing.

Hope this helps,

Cheers
Ted

Scarne is an interesting character. A few diehard fans will defend his reputation as a gambler/magician. But I don't think many people will disagree with me when I say that Scarne simply was not that good, nor very modest about his supposed abilities.

Nevertheless, Scarne on Card Tricks is an interesting book, on one hand, it contains effects by Vernon, Daley, Miller, McMillen, Carlyle and others. On the flip side, Scarne took the sleights out of their material and substituted it with other ruses to make the material more accessible to the general public. There is lots of good stuff in the book, but it is still 'sub-par' to the original versions. Not my first recommendation, but good to have somewhere down the line.

Cheers
Ted

Thanks guys. I ordered Royal Road (It pains me a little because I did have this book in hardcover, and now I don't know what happened to it.) Nevertheless, I also ordered Card Control, by Arthur H. Buckley. It seems that the material may be a little more advanced than some of the beginner material, but I think it will be a good follow up to Royal Road.

Also, about Foundations (the DVD), thats basically why I wanted to get a better foundation. Because the material seemed pretty advanced, and I thought it would be best to get a hold on the basics before I delve into that type of material.

Flappy....purcupine is probably one of the best resources on the internet for folks interested in getting serious about card magic. Heed what he says and take it to heart. That said, their are a few clarifications that I would add.
While this is true for card magic in general, when you get to the point where you are interested in starting Gambling Magic(which it seems is the direction you are headed) this is the first place I'd go. Gambling moves in general are not for the beginner but for the beginning gambler you won't get more detailed instruction than with England's downloads and DVDs. Ackermann and Ortiz will teach you more variants of each move and more applications for them, Turner will teach you some of the more advanced gambling moves, and Erdnase is always a good resource for any magician/demo guy, but no one teaches the basic gambling sleights better. As always this is just a personal opinion but in my case I spent a year or so studying gambling magic from Ackerman and Ortiz and it wasn't until I got Foundations (studied it in conjunction with Erdnase) that I finally got the basics down and was able to start progressing. Now I can go back to Ackerman, Ortiz, and Turner and make use of those DVDs as well.
This should be ammended to say, "for all intents and purposes bikes and Tally Hos are the same." Tally ho stock is slightly thinner than bike stock and will feel slightly stiffer out of the box. I measure the thickness with calipers for my reviews and I go through a series of blindfold tests to test for stiffness. That said, they are printed on the same press and they have about the same quality control and because the difference in stiffness and thickness is so slight I would wager that a beginner would not be able to tell the difference blindfolded. So if you like the looks get them but do not expect a standard Tally Ho to outperform a Bike. If you get serious about gambling magic you may want to keep your eye out for Bee cards. They are thinner and softer than a Bike and a little less likely to bind up in a push-through shuffle. But again, a beginner likely won't feel the difference. So until you really develop a "touch" there is no difference in USPCC cards as to how they perform.

Thanks a lot! I mean this is really excellent and extremely helpful.

But just a note. I'm not new to cards. I'm just starting to get serious about card magic. I would say I can tell the difference between Bikes and Bee's in terms of feel. As for the Tally Ho's, honestly, I just wanted them because I've never owned a deck of Tally Ho's, and I figured I ought to. That being said, I definitely wouldn't say my feel for the different card stocks is extremely good. I'll notice a difference, but I don't think it'll be significant enough for me to understand why a deck would be better/worse in any situation (unless of course they're plastic-coated crap,) But I'm rambling, so again, thanks for all your help guys.

Thanks for the very generous words eostresh, though compared to some of the guys on the cafe, Genii, or TSD, I'm a long long way off from "best"...

Cheers
Ted

No problem. I know you are not exactly new to this but If I understand right you have taken some time off. Because of that it still wouldn't hurt to grab a copy of royal road. Same as you I took a long break from magic. When I got back into it I started with Royal Road. I blew through it a lot quicker than a rank beginner but it was still a good way to "Freshen Up."

There is not quite as distinct a difference between Tally's and Bikes as with the Bees and Bikes but it is still there. Truth be told, it is not Tally Hos that I love but other cards printed on Tally stock that are run off the Web press(or if you can still get those made from Cincinnati the ones run off the old Casino Press). Some of those are given traditional cuts, which if you get into gambling stuff may come in handy.
No Problem. You were a big help to me when I started getting into Gambling stuff so I am glad to see you back.