Hello,

This topic is locked, but I thought you all who were upset at the fellow who wanted to make his own In a Flash deck would want to know this:

Just to clarify that this is a more complicated issue than it seems, Jay Sankey did not create the principles used in In a Flash. The main idea used in this effect appeared in the September 1983 issue of The Linking Ring under the name "Journey to the Center of the Deck," by David Ben, Bob Farmer and Andrew McCarthy.

I hope this helps those of you with overly-simplistic opinions about "stealing" someone's "original" ideas to back off a bit and realize it's a big grey area, not a black and white, right and wrong situation much of the time.

You don't have to post here if you're too humbled/embarrassed to. But if you're brave, you can admit you were too quick to defend something when you didn't really know the whole story.

Unless Jay Sankey pays David, Ben and Andrew each time he gets an In a Flash order, it seems perfectly fine to want to make your own deck.

Two wrongs don't make a right...

Just because person X stole money from person Y, does not make it morally acceptable to steal from person X unless you are working directly for person Y.

If someone misses their car payment, you do not have the right to steal their car and give it back to the bank(repossess) unless the bank ask you to.

So unless you get the personal ok from Ben, Farmer and McCarthy to make your own decks, you can't claim that its ok to rip Sankey off.

Whether it was in Genii or not isn't even the point... unless you knew about the Genii article before ripping off the effect, it was still wrong.(old thing about if you shoot a dead person thinking they were only sleeping.... did you commit murder? ethically? morally? legally?)

Anyway... perhaps now people can just go get the ok from Ben or Farmer or Mccarthy, but it still doesn't give anyone the right to rip off the effects (In a Flash or Journey to the Center of the Deck) without obtaining the effects themselves or getting ok's from the creators.

David Ben's handling of this trick is much more magical than Sankey's. Sankey's version, with flash paper, is very close to my original idea, though I didn't use flash paper, the coin simply sank into the deck. This sounds great, but actually looks stupid and is not deceptive at all. Adding flash paper maybe makes it more deceptive since it appears the hole has just happened. However, David Ben's version (no flash paper) is fabulous and creates a much bigger surprise.

Meir Yedid also had a trick where the Pacman character ate through the deck.

No, Sankey doesn't pay David, Andrew or me. He may give us credit in the instructions, but I've never seen them since I've never purchased the trick (no need to, since I've had the original for years).

I just spoke with David Ben (who also speaks on behalf of Andrew McCarthy). We hereby give any purchaser of David's book TTricks permission to make trick decks for their personal use (not for sale). You'll find David's most excellent routine as "Wonder Coin" (pp. 85-89).

The best way to cut the holes is with a custom-made punch, but the next best way is to use a circle cutter which you can buy at any artist's supply store.

Of course, our permission does not extend to using flash paper. You'll have to buy Jay Sankey's version for that.

David's book can be found at http://www.squashpublications.com/

Now who will come out with the version with the chinese coin and the hole will have a "post" sticking up in the middle.

If the routine was really printed in the linking ring, couldn't any IBM member make up the effect?