"Mark It" - By Peter Nardi
The Effect
"A deck of cards is shown both front and back. Your spectator is asked to name ANY one of the 52 cards – absolutely NO force – the card is located in the deck and signed by the spectator. The card is now thoroughly shuffled back into the deck and placed in the spectator’s hands. A Magical gesture and the deck is turned face down and spread to show that all the backs of the cards have turned completely BLANK! All except for one lonesome card in the middle of the deck – that has retained its RED back. This card is turned over and it is the SIGNED selection. But with just a spin of the card and it is turned facedown to show that the red back has completely VANISHED leaving it completely BLANK!
This is one of my pet effects that I have been using for over ten years. I did release it in very small numbers but have never sold it on a major scale. The reason I love this effect is because it is easy to perform, easy to follow and has an eye-popping ending that fries spectators!"
Cost
$9 or £4.78 from http://www.alakazam-usa.com/acatalog/Downloads.html
Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)
3 - Some sleights used. But nothing hard, just one simple control and one simple sleight. Most of you will find this very easy.
Review
Lately I can't help myself with these instant downloads. So I got this one several weeks ago and I've been using it loads since then. The explanation is very concise and clear. A gimmick, that I'm sure lots of your will have, is needed for this one. The effect really is great. I've got some fantastic reactions from it over the past several weeks, and now I use it all the time. I just have the deck change colour insead of going blank, but it works just as well in my opinion. I think this is great as an opener, unless you were turning it blank in which case it would make a great closer too!
Overall
Well I really do love this trick. It's really easy and the effect is brilliant. You have the backs change, then you have the revelation of their freely selected card, then you have that card change as well! You can get a really big reaction out of each phase. I think this is great value, and I will definitely be using this for a very long time to come.
Both simple and stunning, this is a simply stunning trick
I give this one a 9 out of 10 - Great!
I checked the exchange rate to see what the approximate £ cost was and it's close to the figure quoted above. The other aspect which ran past my tightwad mind is that some credit card companies add a fee to any transactions in foreign currencies. Something like £2 can be added and that can make some overseas purchases of low cost items like this up to 50% more expensive. We need to encourage Peter to have this at Ipswich 
!
