A Dumb But Effective Card Vanish

Here’s a card vanish that is a little dumb, method-wise, but it’s super easy and works well with my style of magic and is more or less impromptu. I doubt there’s anything “new” here, but it’s also not a standard technique. Likely because it’s best for one-on-one situations and not the sort of thing that would be useful table-hopping or something like that.

I start with a deck of 51 cards. If I’m getting into this unplanned, then I just leave one card in the card-case when I take the deck out.

Your friend can choose any card and sign it without you knowing what it is and shuffle it back into the deck themselves. (Alternatively, if the card isn’t signed, you will need to know what it is via a force or a peek.)

Without taking the deck in my own hands, I tell them I’m going to make their card disappear.

I do something to imply I’m making the card disappear.

I tell them to deal the cards into my hand and count them as they go.

There are 51 cards.

“But maybe the deck was always missing a card. That’s possible. That’s certainly much more likely than that the card vanished, right? I want you to be absolutely sure so we’re going to go through just a few cards at a time and see if we see your card.”

I deal one card face-up on the table.

“Is that yours?”

No.

I deal two more.

“Either of those?”

No.

I deal three more.

“These”

No.

I continue dealing through the cards like this, just a few at a time, until we’re completely through the deck. Their selection is gone. They can completely examine the deck.

The card reappears wherever you’ve set it up to. In your wallet. In their purse. Back at their house in their baby’s diaper.

Method

Long-time readers will see why this sort of method appeals to me. There’s a real relaxed air to it. The card can be selected, signed, returned to the deck, and shuffled back into the pack, completely in their hands.

Dealing through the deck a few cards at a time is part of the method, but it also feels like a casual and fair way to be certain their card is gone.

The method is—as I said—nothing really interesting. I’m dealing through the cards, face-up on the table. The cards are angled at me. So I’m just keeping an eye out for their signed card (or the card I peeked). When I spot it as we’re going through the dealing process, I just take the few cards above it and leave it on the face of the pack.

As I lay down the few cards in my right hand for them to look at, I thumb off the card from the deck onto my lap. Their attention is on the cards being placed on the table, nowhere else.

Once we get to the end of dealing through the cards, I push the pile toward them and say, “Maybe it got stuck to another card or something. Double check.”

At this point, you can load the card into your wallet or an envelope (or an envelope in your wallet (or an envelope in your wallet inside of a low-carb tortilla)).

It’s a minor part of the deception, but I think it’s important to do the thing where you start with 51 cards. This way, the initial “vanish” happens while the cards are still in their hands. It’s not convincing at this point, but it’s slightly suggestive that something may have happened. And it justifies the idea of dealing through a few cards at a time to see if their card is really gone.

You may feel it’s stronger to not have the cards signed. Then you apparently couldn’t know what it is as you deal through the deck. In some cases I do it like that. It really depends on where the card is going to be revealed whether I want it signed or not.

Recently, I’ve been doing this with a wingman. Actually, I’ve been the wingman when doing this the last couple of times. My friend did this twice recently when he met up with people in public. Once the card is in his lap, I steal it away. (At one place we did it, he let it fall to the floor and kicked it over to me. At another, there was a bench along one wall of the café with multiple tables and chairs off that bench. We both sat on the bench side of the tables and he slid it down to me along the bench.)

Before the trick starts, he asks the person he’s with to name a place. “Not like Paris or something. Somewhere in the general area. Somewhere we could get to easily.”

After I get control of the card, I leave and plant the card somewhere at the place she named. Then I text my friend with a pic or other details so he knows exactly where to find the card when he gets there.

We have some other techniques we use to force the specific location the card will appear (at the general location they chose) once they arrive.

For example, a timing force where the spectator stops the magician “anywhere” as they point their finger and rotate in a circle. Things like that.

So it’s a complete card vanish, appearing anywhere the spectator names. This is unfathomable stuff to a layman who has no idea you’re working with someone else.