I'm curious if anyone can give me some pointers or lead me to a good source that can help me in mastering backpalming. I have a few resources that teach it, but I seem not to be able to get it down. Anyone know if Jeff Mcbride's or Daryl's card DVD's have this sleight taught in them? Any information would be greatly appreciated. -Brandon

i know that palming is taught on daryl's encyclopedia of card slieghts vol. 6. there are several methods taught but im not sure if the one you want is taught.

i know that palming is taught on daryl's encyclopedia of card slieghts vol. 6. there are several methods taught but im not sure if the one you want is taught.

The Encyclopedia of Card Sleights do not cover back palming but Jeff McBride’s Art of Card Manipulation Series do teach you the back palm technic for vanishes and stuff like that. Is that why you are interest in back palming for vanishing cards? Tell me because I don’t know of another use for the back palm.

Yeah i would go with art of manipulation. Theres some great card production in there.

There was a great book published in the early 1960s that included a lot of information on back palming and several routines based on card manipulation like Phoenix Aces and Flight of the Blues. I don't know if it is still in print or not. It is called Professional Card Magic by Cliff Green and was published by Tannen's.

This book, Professional Card Magic, just sold last night on eBay for $34. It was a rare first edition. I was thinking about picking it up, but I decided to hold off. Ah well.

Thanks for all the information guys.

cyberman, sorry for the lack of a swift responce, my computer at home was acting really odd, and when I tried to post it wouldn't let me. So I had to wait till I got to work to reply. Yes backpalming is a great way to do a visual vanish, but once it's mastered you can build whole routines around this sleight. You can develop your skills enough to actually learn backpalm packets and then produce fans out of a apparently empty hand. And at this point in my developing of skills, I'm trying to concentrate hard on sleights because they open up so many tricks and avenues from preforming tricks, modifying them and even to inventing. So thats the reason I'm interested in it. Hope it helped answer your question. - Brandon

Too bad, Cameron. What a good price. I think I paid $25 for it in 1980! It is a good book, but not for the faint of heart, for sure. Very difficult material. But I was always told that it was one of the best books for card manipulations. I've just never been that motivated to learn stand-up manipulation, though it is beautiful to watch. There are some good non-manipulation routines in that book, and one of the cool things about it is it reviews all the past masters like Malini, Leipzig, Hoffzinzer, etc. Not in great detail, but it gives you a good sense of the past and their contributions. It is definately a worthwhile book to have.

Where else besides ebay to you look for older books? I have been wanting to find Darwin Ortiz's Strong Magic, but it has been out of print and I haven't been able to find it yet.

I picked up an out of print book from Ron Allesi's Used, Rare, and Antique Magic. The price was very good for this book. It's in MINT condition and Ron was very cooperative. I ordered it on Wednesday and it was here Saturday.

Also, if you go to the Barnes and Noble website, they have a place to search for rare & out of print books. I see Professional Card Magic on there right now for about $30.

Great, I'll check these out -- thanks, Cameron!

Heh, I bought my first edition of Pro Card Magic for around $10. And this was around 1995.

Did I mention that it's autographed by the technical editor too?
Howard Schwarzman is a really nice fellow.

Check out Edited they have around 1000 books in stock as well as the ability to find most anything that you want. Also, look for Michael Cannick booksellers. I can't remember his website, you can search alt.magic for it as he posts there occasionally. You can also find some good deals on books at www.lybrary.com
Edited for Non-Penguin Marketing, they sell items Penguin sells, sorry guys. fcchief

You got a great deal on Pro Magic, David! Thanks for the info on the different sites. I hadn't heard of Cannick or dennymagic, but they look like pretty good sites. I like Lybrary.com -- that is a pretty cool website, with a lot of interesting older books you can get as ebooks for very reasonable prices. They have a great ebook of Card College vol 1 with short video clips of all the moves and sleights. Vol 2 is due to be released as an ebook later this summer. One other place for out of print books is H&R Magic www.magicbookshop.com. They have been around for a while and are very good. And, Richard Hatch (the H in H&R) was the translator for Card College.

I'd like to suggest The "Now you see it now you don't" volumes by Bill Tarr. Easy to understand, read and great illustrations.
TTFN
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