I've been reading a lot of posts, and have a question about books.

There are three books who keep turning up.

Royal Road to Magic
Expert Card Technique
Card College 1-5

When I read posts about books, there are always lots of people who refer to RRTC as their first choice.

Can anyone tell me what the significant difference is between RRTC and Card College except for the modern or old style ?

Do they teach the same or not ? Does one of the two learn you more (or better) than the other one?

The reason I ask this, is that I'm thinking about buying a book (1 for now), and Card College is the only one I can buy locally, and is easy for me to pay without a credit card.

Thanks again to all.

Royal Road is a great introduction and covers a lot of important basic ground. It is slightly old fashioned perhaps but this is not a serious problem. It does include some great tricks of fairly easy level of difficulty

Card College (vols 1 to 5) cover a great deal more ground in far more detail. The explanations of the various sleights are very clear and precise with a lot of drawings which make it very easy to understand. There are also a number of tricks included some of which are excellent

If you will only ever be able to buy one book, buy RRTCM. This is because Vol 1 of Card College does not cover as much ground. However, if you seriously plan on studying card magic then you cannot go wrong with the Card College series as a whole. They are a very thorough and fundamental grounding which will serve you well.

The general idea is that I start with one book. I'm sure that it will not stay with one book.

I would buy the first CC book and then later on, when I saved up again, buy the second and so on.

They are pretty expensive, so buying them all together is a little too much for now. (1 book = 50 €)

PS : I know the books are less expensive anywhere else, like Daytona Magic, but I Have to get them to Belgium, so shipping gets expensive too.

If you plan to buy several books over time, I would definitely go for Card College

Hoi,

I only have volume one of "Card College", so I can't really judge the series. Book one is a good book, but having said that...

If you can only get one book right now, I would certainly suggest "The Royal Road". If you're an absolute beginner, it'll keep you busy for quite some time (enough time to perhaps save your money for further books). It's an older book, and maybe not too "flashy", but it's full of great, useable tricks and clearly written.

Look at "bol.com", they have it for under 20 euro's. They send their stuff out with a bill, so it's pretty easy to order.

"Expert Card Technique" is also a great book, but much more involved than "The Royal Road". You'll probably want it one day.

Good luck with whatever you decide to get.

Thanks for the tip on bol.com

edit :

Actually the tip on bol.com turns out to be a VERY good one. There's a Holland branch where I can order without credit card.

Another thing you might need to to think about is the postage costs from wherever you buy them from to Belgium. They're pretty hefty books so it might not be cheap.

Yup, the biggest problem is that the costs of shipping and handling sometimes exceeds the cost of the product

You can sometimes get The Royal Road in regular bookstores as well.
(I have actually seen it in 'De Standaard boekhandel' in Antwerpen last year)

If you can read German, you can purchase the original edition of Card College from a German source.

I used to be 100% gung-ho towards the Card College series. It is a GREAT series.

However...

I believe there is much more merit in purchasing RRTCM, completing it, and then deciding where YOU want to go with your card magic.

Card College is a great reference, but it covers SO MUCH material that it is hard to get a handle on what YOU need/want to learn.

RRTCM serves as a great introduction and will not overwhelm you with sheer volume. THEN you can choose what is best for you.

This is just my opinion, obviously! Listen to everyone then choose what is best!

I started this thread, and again the discussion on which books starts.

Card College is easier to find for me here in Belgium, so I think I will go with this one.

If I happen to stumble on to RRTCM in the book shop in Antwerpen(tnx for the tip, sjiwi), I will buy that one first.


Posted: Jan 8, 2004 7:02am

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WOOHOO,

As I was looking a last time on line for the book , I stumbled upon RRTCM on a Belgian online booksite.

15.95 € and NO shipping costs.

so, between now and two weeks, I will be practicing like crazy

You should be able to order the royal road in any shop.. just a few weeks wait........

get rrtcm first

without a doubt
I went out and brought loads of books at first.....

rrtcm is the best "first" book by far.


Posted: Jan 8, 2004 7:28pm

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Cool


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