Hello everyone, I am semi new to magic and all, I LOVE card tricks and close up magic and would like to be an all card trick type of guy. What books and videos does everyone recomend for Card Sleights? And has anyone seen any of the videos from http://www.ellusionist.com/ ? they look really good and I'm thinking of getting some but I would like to hear some opinions first.
And if anyone has any other sites where I can get magic videos to download (even if I have to pay for them) that would be great. I live in ontario canada and dutie is too much to be paying for videos from the US, so downloading them are the best way to go or even getting them from canada but I haven't found many places to get good videos for card tricks here in canada.
And also whats card decks does everyone use? Brand and colour and also whats everyones top favoirt trick decks?

Well anyways thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope I didn't bore anyone.

Shaun

I wanted to be an All-Card-Trick kinda guy at one time several years ago.

Then I saw Jay Sankey do Tenkai Pennies on a video at the magic store. I remember saying this exact phrase to myself...

"Now I gotta do coins!"

That was a real eye-opener.

I mention this because though cards are awesome, there are wonderful things out there that you can learn to make your performances more entertaining and for different size audiences. Even an audience of 8 can have a hard time seeing a just cards act depending on where you do it.

You certainly CAN do just cards. Ask Darwin Ortiz. But you have to be awfully good to get away with it.

In the mean time keep an open mind.

It sounds like you're just getting started.
Try as hard as possible to avoid trick decks. Don't spend all your money on trick decks and gaffs.

Get Card College I,II,III,IV books.
Get Michael Ammar Card Videos

Use PayPal and get Books and Videos from people here or on Ebay instead of paying full price.

Remember that when you perform a trick it's not the trick that's good. It is your performance of the trick that is what is important. Practice until it is perfect and use a lot of eye contact with your spectators. Be yourself when you perform. Don't try to be like someone else.

my $.02

Wow thanks for the help, I just posted my topic like 20min ago and I got a reply already. I hope everyone is as nice as you and I think this is gonna be a great place to hang out and talk!

Hi Shaun,
Cards are great, but I agree with fstarsinic.
You should also learn sleight of hand techniques. A good item to start with would be sponge balls. Learning retention of vision vanishes, fake takes, false transfers,etc. These same moves can be utilized with coins and other objects. Jay Sankey has a new video out called Ear Plugs. He goes into detail on the handling of the terms I mentioned above. Also as fstarsinic mentioned are the " Easy to Master Card Miracles Video Set by Michael Ammar are excellent. Most card guys use Bicycle 808 poker size cards. Red is the preferred color to use, but blue is used as well. It's always nice to mix up your routines. Also you should definately pick up Gregory Wilson's "On The Spot" video set. You'll learn alot. Well that's my opinion. Hope it helps.........David Paul

yes, On the Spot is a 2 video set and well worth the money.

I have them. You can find several routines in there that your can perform in short order anywhere, anytime.

Hello Shaun.
My advice is: if you're into cards, learn the all the basic sleights and stay away from trick decks (like Frank said). The same applies to coins. Learn first the basic sleights and some tricks with regular coins. then you can move to the gaffs. Because if you can work a regular deck/coins, then with the gaffs you'd have no problems!
Learn other things besides cards. I'm not the right person to talk about this since I mainly do cards, but am trying to learn other stuff (coins, sponge balls, rubber bands,etc).
You may consider the videos from ellusionist very cool, but with the money they worth you can get lots of books with much more info. Yes, from the videos is easy to learn the sleights, it's true, but magic is much more than sleights (it has nothing to do with sleights).
Try the magic books on amazon. Great resources at low price.
I use bikes and prefer red. But a blue deck it's also nice.
Above all, have fun.
Good luck on this magic journey

Hi Shaun,

Although I perform exclusively with cards, I did focus on cards after I had tried my hand at other effects. There are plenty of guys that make a living using nothing but cards but the advice given above is good to follow. See if you like what else is out there and then make your decisions.

Don't get anything from Ellusionist website, he's just another guy trying to make a buck by selling methods and stuff that have been covered in other texts.

Get the texts, you will learn a lot more and they will be MUCH cheaper.

Get The Royal Road to Card Magic

Thanks for all this info everyone, I just wanna make one thing clear though........I'm not really doing this to make money, just cause I love cards and doing card tricks, I don't know if I will ever perfrom anywhere at all or charge anything at all. I just wanna learn for me right now to do stuff to friends, family and stuff.
I might be ordering the 8 DVD set from Daryl "the enciclipedia of card sleights" and also his "daryl does the full monte". Has seen these videos? and are they good? or is there better videos by other people that you recomend?
Once again thanks for all the help, this forum is great and all the people on here seem really cool.

Thanks
Shaun

Shaun,

Start with the basics. Royal Road to Card Magic, Expert Card Technique. Giobbi's Card College, an updated collection of sleights. Daryls' stuff is good as far as video or DVD's, also Alan Ackerman's collection of sleights that spans many videos.

Jim

This is by far the best website for card tricks: Http://ps.superb.net/cardtric/tricks.htm