Research Help

[Bob Plaut]

I’m doing some research on the comedy bit where a helper chooses a card from a jumbo deck and after some byplay the magician has her return the card to a regular sized deck. Your help in identifying the original source as well as routines is much obliged.

[Richard Kaufman]

It can't be any earlier than when jumbo decks were first sold, though it likely seems like a vaudeville or nightclub gag.

[Tom Stone]

I’m doing some research on the comedy bit where a helper chooses a card from a jumbo deck and after some byplay the magician has her return the card to a regular sized deck. Your help in identifying the original source as well as routines is much obliged.

As a gag, it might be a lot older, but made into an actual trick, there's "World’s Second Best Card Trick" by Rich Bloch and Collectors’ Workshop.
https://www.martinsmagic.com/allmagic/c ... -workshop/

[Philippe Billot]

I haven't The Linking Ring issue, no. 6, June 2004, page 178 but it seems that The duo Petrick & Mia used this idea.

If someone can check...

[Philippe Billot]

On February 25, 1978, during the Annual Magic Show at Ring One, "Jim Folk located a jumbo card in a normal size deck" but the report doesn't say if it's a gag or a transformation...

[PressureFan]

Petrick & Mia, Volume Three - Commercial Magic
'Likes Attract - It begins as a silly experiment as a jumbo card is selected from a normal sized deck. Things get serious, however, as the jumbo card is freely inserted back into the deck and ends up next to its match.'

[Edwin Corrie]

If memory serves, Supreme Magic in the UK used to sell this as "The World's Greatest Card Trick", though I can't remember who it was credited to. It was in an old catalogue of theirs from around 1978 (orange cover) which I have buried in a box somewhere. I'll see if I can find it.

[Philippe Billot]

Good morning, Edwin,

Is there any chance of finding an advertisement in Magigram magazine?

[Q. Kumber]

The version sold by The Supreme Magic Company was called The World's Craziest Card Trick and is credited to William Giebert of the U.S.A.
Originally published in The Magigram Volume 2, Number 1, 1968.

[Philippe Billot]

Thanks Q. Kumber.

The trick is explained page 7 as "A Big Card Trick" by Bill Gebert.
He begins with a "normal deck" but when the spectator takes a card, it's a jumbo card.
Actually, it seems that magician(s) begin with a jumbo deck, then exchange the deck for a "normal" deck and go on with the gag.

[Edwin Corrie]

My bad! Craziest, not Greatest. But I remember always liking the idea of shuffling a jumbo card into a normal pack.
Thanks Quentin. And yes, that was me at The Session whose name you said sounded familiar, and who you showed your Gypsy Curse routine (very nice).