Skip's Trick

One of the most talked-of tricks at the Colon Get Together in 1948 was attributed to a man who apparently was not a magician. He was said to have been a professional gambler, there to show the boys what he could do. The reports on the trick he did caused many raised eyebrows and a prolonged search for the operator, ‘Skip.’ But nobody located him - perhaps he had left town.

Skip had a card selected and shuffled it back into the deck. He held the deck face up and dealt the cards off the face of the deck one by one, turning each card face down as it was dealt. In the course of the deal he was seen to pass the chosen card. Finally he stopped at a card which naturally enough was not the chosen one. He turned this card face down and announced that it was the chosen one. When he was told that the chosen card had been passed, he asked what the card was, and without a false move showed that the last card dealt had changed into that card. The rest of the cards were turned over and no duplicates were found.

Those familiar with Clyde Carey’s Dick Tracy Card Trick (sometimes attributed to Vernon) may recognise the basic plot. But Skip worked with the deck face up. The Dick Tracy trick was published in My Best in 1945, so magicians would have been familiar with it – the method used by Skip was something different.

But what?

Next month I’ll share a solution. Meanwhile, you might want to think of one yourself. Feel free to share any thoughts in the comments below.