Hi all,

I'm looking for "A Swindle of Sorts" by Paul Curry. I know that it's in "Paul Curry Presents" (1974), which is out of print. And of course, used copies of this book are rather expensive...

That said, I believe this trick is described in "Scarne On Card Tricks", but with a different name.

Does someone know what it is?

Thanks in advance.

I don't remember this effect being in Scarne On Card Tricks.
Are you only interested in Curry's presentation or the principle involved? Because, there are quite a few other good routines utilizing the "deal or switch" principle.

I'm looking for Curry's original routine, but good variations are welcome, of course.

It can be found on page 245 in the book "Paul Curry's Worlds Beyond" (Hermetic Press 2001).
I don't know if it's available, but it is filled with great tricks.

It contains the original writeup for out of this world as well as Mr Currys "improvement" The Best Of Possible Worlds from 1974.

Mikael Johansson
Sweden

Now out of print but its a great book, Paul Curry's Worlds beyond.

This is a fantastic effect. The Curry original involves dealing cards one by one, then switching the positions of two to show that this places the cards out of sequence (because they start in ace-through-king order). Then the magician says he'll move some of the cards around and has the spectator stop him three times during the deal to switch cards. At the end, the cards are back in ace-through-king order, proving that the magician psychologically influenced the spectator to interrupt the deal at the proper places. Hope that makes sense. As I said, the effect is excellent.


Oh yes, the best part is that you are set up to do The Lazy Man's Card Trick. Just place your stack to the bottom of the deck, do a center Hindu shuffle, keeping it there and you're all set to go into LMCT. I love this as an impromptu way to perform an incredibly easy (technically speaking, of course) routine of card magic when someone asks you to perform. You can just borrow a deck and go into some great magic... all from a spectator-shuffled deck. Enjoy.

There's a very good version available called "Mix'n'Match" in Peter Duffie's "The Legacy of Dave Campbell" available from International Magic, London.

You are correct Mikael, it is in that book. What exactly did Bikoz want to know about the trick, it is essentially self working. I also have the original in Paul Curry Presents.
Rennie

I know the effect but I wanted to read Curry's original text. I wanted to know if this trick could be found under another name in Scarne's book (which someone had suggested in another thread).

It's not much help to you, and my copies of both books are in storage right now pending a move, so I can't consult either right now, but I'm almost certain that the Curry effect under discussion here isn't described anywhere in "Scarne On Card Tricks." I had the latter years before I obtained Paul Curry Presents, and hadn't looked at the Scarne book much for awhile by the time I obtained the Curry book, but I had combed though everything in the Scarne book fairly thoroughly many times years prior to that, and the Curry effect didn't closely resemble anything I remembered seeing in Scarne's book.

Of course I could be mistaken, and if you don't learn anything before then, I'll try to skim through the Scarne book in search of anything which might resemble the Curry effect when I'm able to, although it's hard to predict right now how long that might be, so someone else here may well be able to come up with a definitive answer sooner.


Posted: Apr 12, 2009 12:00pm
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Unfortunately, I still haven't gotten my magic library "unboxed" (this has been the slowest moving process in my life, for reasons too complicated and uninteresting to go into here), but for something to kill some spare time with a few days ago, I managed to dig out the Garcia/Schindler book "Magic With Cards", it's not being as deeply buried as the Scarne and Curry books, and in skimming through it to review the contents, having not looked at it for many years, I ran across what I believe to be essentially the Curry effect under discussion here. It's not as well-described as in the Curry book, with less attention to subtle presentational details etc. (and with no credit to Curry or anyone else as is true of most of the other tricks in the book, although I can't say with certainty whether Curry should be fully credited for originating the effect or not), but as memory best serves, I believe it's the same basic handling and effect.

Since I'm still pretty sure that no handling of this effect is described in the Scarne book, is it possible that you were (or someone was) confusing the Scarne book with the Garcia/Schindler one, as they're both essentially "beginner" card magic books?

Here is a video of my version of the Curry Swindle . . . I call it "Predict".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSjOA2IiKvo

All comments are welcome,
Greg Rostami

Greg,

Outstanding presentation and presentation ploy.

Of course, just "another day in the life of" that I've come to expect when watching you perform magic.

Thanks for sharing.

Mike

Greg,

This is a beautiful version of the trick. I love how you had the spectator not only deal the cards, but how you allowed him to decide whether to follow you or not, and finally to repeat it. You've really stretched the idea and as a result, this is really impossible. I can imagine this performed for a large group and the response you would receive as it builds. Well done!

Thank you very much guys . . .

This is one of my favorite tricks in my repertoire. It's one of these amazing things you can do with either any deck or even with just 10 business cards. I've often performed this with my business cards with 1-10 written on their backs.

On the above video performance I didn't do all of my usual acting when I'm "looking into the future". I close my eyes, strain, and look down on the table as I pan my head from left to write as I acknowledge each card that I'm seeing in the future.

When I write the prediction, I also make 1 or 2 mistakes on the prediction that I cross out and correct. When the spec is reading the prediction, I explain "the images of these 2 cards was a little blurry, but when I concentrated harder their identity became clear."

Greg Rostami

Lovely variation Greg. The Mix 'n' Match I mentioned earlier allows the spectator to choose how many cards to deal to the table in each turn.

Hi Roger . . .

Can you tell me a little more about the effect of Mix 'n' Match, and how it's different from the original Curry Swindle?

thank you,
Greg Rostami

Greg,

Until I see the video I was not aware that it was possible to use the Sw-n-l- Sw-t-h apart from Curry's original routine. It opens up new perspectives.

And your plot and prensentation are awesome, too!

Thank you vey much for sharing with us!

@robini: thank you for the hard "unboxing process"

Hi bikoz,
Thank you for your compliment.

Now, I have a big question from my fellow magicians.

Do you think my take on the Curry Swindle is original enough to be sold for $5??

Or is it too close to Paul Curry's original method that I shouldn't release this as a product?

Greg Rostami

As far as I am concerned $5 is OK for your routine. I fact, I was just about to ask you if I could purchase it somewhere...

I do think It's a great addition to Curry's principle and routine.

Of course, some people may think $5 is way too much for a single routine, because for $20 or $30 you can a get a book with many routines...

Like everyone here, I like real books. But sometimes you only need/want to learn (or just read) one routine in particular and having the choice to buy only what you need is a great thing, in my humble opinion.

For example, I have recently bought "Devastation" from Geoff Williams for $5. It's not publicly available, but I have simply asked Geoff! And I have bought several $5 eBooks from Lybrary.com too.

Yes, eBooks are great!

Feel free to send me a PM me if you need a "beta tester". I will pay the $5, of course