I’ve been working on a trick that requires the use of a very old mathematical principle known as Automatic Placement as Marlo christened it, I believe.

In most effects of that type, a spectator first cuts off a small packet from a deck, counts the cards in their packet and remembers the number which is then used to select a card.

Later on, the spectator’s packet will be used according to the principle, or a Faro shuffle will be used instead in more advanced handlings.

But, do you know where was first published the use of the principle without cutting off a packet? The spectator thinks of a number and remembers the card a that number. The principle is later on brought into play by asking the spectator to deal their thought-of number from top to bottom of deck.

Thanks for your help.

Here's a search result from conjuringarchive.com which might help.

https://www.conjuringarchive.com/list/se......lacement

This one specifically mentions "card at thought of position".


C. O. Williams "The Card from the Pocket" Description: card at thought of position is remembered and found, lazy man

Related to:
The Card in the Pocket (1909)

Variations
Sidepockets (Karl Fulves, 1989)
CO2 (Justin Higham, 2008)
Automatic Placement Card to Pocket (Claudio Imperiale, 2022)

Year Published: 1937
Book Title: Encyclopedia of Card Tricks
Page: 342

Thank you.

I did actually run this very same query myself, but it’s not very helpful as I don’t have most of the resources listed, plus it’d take me a very long time to look them all up.

I do have the resources you listed and they all use a cut-off packet to determine the “thought-of” number.

Maybe I should reframe my question. Instead of first published, I will now ask:

Do you know where the use of the Automatic Placement principle without cutting off a packet has been published?

Thanks

Hi Claudio, isn't the success of the principle dependent on a packet being cut off prior to the selection of a card? I'm trying to picture how it would play out without displacing or cutting any cards. Perhaps it's a different principle altogether? I will do some digging, just trying to gather more info so I'm looking in the right places.

Hi Thomas, thank you for chiming in.

Indeed, there needs to be a displacement of cards. In the vast majority of handlings, the cut-off packet is put back to the top or bottom of deck according to your needs. This is necessary to position the selected card according to your requirements.

In the handling I’m after, there’s no need for a cut-off packet, BUT at some point, you’ll ask the spectator to transfer as many cards as their freely thought number from top to bottom of deck (or vice versa).

This is accomplished while you’re facing away from the spec (of course). It has the same effect as the cut-off-packet scenario and it’s easier to motivate in some context and looks less procedural - especially the number selection and card selection that look freer. The principle is the same though.

I hope I'm being clear.

Both handlings are good and really fooling, but I need the latter for a trick I'm working on and I don't know whom to credit for it.

Thank you for elaborating. I suppose what I don't understand is how they're the same. In the Automatic Placement, if 15 cards are cut off, the thought of card is essentially the 30th card from the original top of the deck. However, I'm having trouble understanding the selection procedure in the scenario you're looking for.
If they are looking at the card at their thought of number, then later displacing the same number would make it obvious that the magician knows where their card is.

Hope I am being clear as well, lol.

T.J.

Thomas, I sent you a PM.

Hi Claudio,

While I don't have a direct answer to your question, there is an article about the Automatic Placement on the Conjuring Credits website, here:
https://www.conjuring-credits.com/doku.p......lacement

It refers to volume II of The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley (p. 349) as a "good source for the history behind this concept and how it developed."

The passage in the Elmsley book reads (I hope quoting this passage constitutes fair use):

"The principle on which Mr. Marlo based his trick-one he called "the automatic placement"-has roots that burrow down over two hundred years into magical history. The starting point is a mathematical card location that can be found in the literature of the late 1700s. Over the years this principle has reappeared in various guises. The most pertinent to our topic begin with Eddie Joseph's "Who Knows the Card?" (Eddie's Dumbfounders with Cards, 1950, pp. 4-5) and continue to advance with Rufus Steele's "They Tell You Nothing", "You Tell Them Everything" and (with Robert Parrish) "Tell and Spell" (Steele's Last Word on Cards, 1952,pp. 32-36). Then we turn to Gerald Kosky's "No-clue Card Miracle" (an instruction sheet marketed in late 1953 by Joe Berg, reprinted in The Magic of Gerald Kosky, 1975,p. 28) and Edward G. Brown's "Two Pile Trick" (Hall's Card Magic of Edward G. Brown, pp. 74-80, published in 1973, though this trick was worked out in 1947). All this work preceded Edward Marlo's writings on the subject in The New Phoenix, which three years later he recast in his Faro Notes (1958,pp. 47-49). Gerald Kosky's trick features virtually the same handling of the mathematical placement explained by Mr. Marlo. However, this chronology cannot verify sources of inspiration for these developers, as none thought to mention previous sources and it is reasonable to assume parallel invention in some if not all of these cases. While there is more to say about the history of the automatic placement, I have digressed from our main subject, and it is time to return to Mr. Elmsley's trick."

Stephen Minch provides this interesting bit of history in the context of his description of Elmsley's routine "Spell By The Numbers".

Hi Tilman. I was aware of this, but thanks for typing it all in!

I got a bit further in my search as I got great help from a couple of Café members. I found out that Dani DaOrtiz has been using this handling for years. He described a variation of the handling in his book Cartomagia Semi-Automática, published in 2011. He says he learnt the principle from Juan Escolano, a Spanish magician friend of his.

I might just leave it at that as the search for its origin looks quite arduous, if not a dead end.

Thank you all.