talkmagic.co.uk

Dont get me wrong here, this is far from a rant but i would love to hear other opinions of this,

i understand from a magicians point of view that signing a card cancels out any switch of the card, but does signing a card not take away from the other effects where we dont sign a card?

let me give you an example, i was doing my routine the other day and was finishing with in a flash, and got the spec to sign the card stating that it makes it the only card like that in the world. After this he says, why did you not do that with the previous tricks? were they different cards in the other tricks?

Does that make sense?

now Granted this is the first time ive heard this but still it raises an important issue. why are we bringing attention to when we get specs to sign a card to prove its the same one, as this just takes away from any effect where were not signing cards weather we are switching them or not.

hope this makes sense. let me know your thoughts

(Removed: I'm a fool who misunderstood the post)

though i dont have "in a flash" - i would assume i know what is involved...

so you can easily say - "let me ask you to sign a card this time..cos if it survives this next trick, you can keep the remains!" and say it in a faux-jokey way...

but as for signing cards...meh...don't worry about it...if you don't like it - don't do it...

cos it'll depend on whether your deck gets examined previously, shuffled by someone, dropped, kicked, launched into orbit via a monkey - all kinds of things...

i suppose you could say "im going to ask you to sign a card now, cos everything we'd done together tonight, you've shuffled and chosen stuff...now the next thing you'll experience will genuinely be soooo magical and mystifying...well, you'll swear i did all with smoke and mirrors....

so i want you to sign a card right now for me please...."

Can't say I have ever had this come up....that is not to say it presents an interesting question. Something simple like....here sign this, you will want to keep it as a little momento when we are done would cover it. I think the more you emphasize the don't sign then sign discrepencie, the more they will question it....you will always have an occasional sceptic and you can't and shouldn't worry about revising things to accomodate them. Regardless of what you do/prove/disprove, they will always have a question that confronts you.

Holy chicken coop, batman, this is the third time this has come up in a week

I don't think it's really a difficult concept and I'm somewhat surprised it's causing so many furrowed brows... it depends entirely on the effect.

If I got you to choose a card, lost it back into the pack, then found it somewhere unexpected - inside a balloon, inside an egg, inside the gallbladder of a passing goat... clearly an easy methodical conclusion for the spectator to jump to is that you made them choose the same card and pre-loaded a duplicate. Despite almost any incredible lengths you can go to for the relevation, if it can be explained by a dupe and a force, it becomes just an exercise in "how did he physically get it into the egg", but of course, that's not magic, it's just a puzzle.

If you are claiming that their actual, unique, physical card transported itself into an egg, or was restored after it was ripped or burned etc - any effect which can be pretty much deflated by someone saying (or thinking), "well, obviously it's an identical card..." - is made more powerful if the card is a) signed or b) has a corner torn off that will later match. When people start wondering about magic ink, and start scratching at the signature and asking to see the pen, you're in a good position I feel.

If however it is a matter of the cards magically doing things that seem to defy explanation, like a triumph effect - well, that's not really made any clearer by the addition of a duplicate, is it? You select a card, it goes back into the deck, the cards are shuffled faces into backs and with a magical pass, they are all correctly orientated in an instant, except the selection... the idea "it must be a duplicate card" is fairly obviously redundant and absurd here.

With regard to your performance rvoice100, I don't actually think the card needs to be signed for In a Flash; whether or not the card that the "fire stops at" is literally the same card as they just handled is totally unimportant - the "magic" is in the fact that they're seeing something quite shocking happen (a coin wrapped in tissue burn through a deck of cards) and that this wild, uncontrollable force of fire is somehow magically influenced to extinguish itself in a way that reveals their selection. Again, the "it must be a duplicate" theory has no real bearing on a "solution" whatsoever.

Basically, magic in general and also the reputation of card cheats having extra aces up their sleeves means that even a spectator who is trying to cooperate will at some point end up thinking "I bet it's not really my card" if you give them the opportunity. Having a card signed eliminates this. Job done!

Of course, it also has the added benefits of saving you from embarrassment if your nervous or intoxicated spectator forgets what they selected, and makes the card a bit more personal should they want to keep it as as a souvenir. (I never force it upon them by the way... suggesting that everyone who sees a trick is a desperate to take home a grubby playing card with their own signature on it is a bit arrogant, not to mention the rate at which it depletes the deck, but if they ask that's another matter).

So in answer to your actual question - the issue of having some signed and some not should never really come up, because it should be obvious why you're having it signed for a certain effect.

A card doesn't have to be signed unless a very good reason is given for that action, to the spectator.

Otherwise, why not sign EVERY card?

A passable analogy would be asking to have a prop examined. Why not have them all examined? Simple: because you can't.

Do you think your audience is made up of morons

Peter Marucci wrote:A card doesn't have to be signed unless a very good reason is given for that action, to the spectator.

Otherwise, why not sign EVERY card?

As explained above, not every trick requires a signature to sell it. Card to x does. Anniversary waltz does. Ambitious card does. Triumph doesn't.

If I can then I do. That's pretty much my rule. I know that one of the first things people think of is duplicates. One way of getting around this is signing the card, another is the Intercessor for example.

When at a gig the deck is so worn by the end that I don't really want to keep it so signing cards as I go isn't a problem for me. It is true that you should probably build up to a signed card effect rather than the other way round but as the others have said, letting them keep the last one used as a present gives you an excuse as to why they didn't sign them all.

Having said that you also have to think about structure, a good finishing effect which doesn't allow for signing should probably not go after an effect which has been signed.

Horses for courses, swings & roundabouts & all that.

Russ

I've also not had this happen to me but I can understand the reasoning.

I suppose that if you are going to do a signed card effect then it would perhaps make some sense to do it as an opener and then stick with that card.

On the other hand, if a spec is becomming suspicious that there are duplicate cards being used, even if they aren't, then it would then make sense to throw in a signed card routine at that point of the preceedings.

Either way, I don't think that it's going to become a big issue for most people. Some specs are just too clever for their own good

You do all know the real reason we are having cards signed dont you?


Sharpies have become easy to get, and like bicycle playing cards.. there a "badge of office" for a good magician.

( or so the nubie, and web magicians have us believe!)

rvoice100 wrote:After this he says, why did you not do that with the previous tricks? were they different cards in the other tricks?

I think it's up to the magician to ensure there is no doubt in the spectator's mind there are no duplicates when a card isn't signed.

Signing a card then doesn't detract from the other effects. It just means that an extra layer of evidence is required to achieve the desired effect.

Time to get Darwin Ortiz' 'Strong Magic' out...

It's because David Beckham advertised sharpies making them an essential accessory. Right up there with black eye liner and black cards.

I don't get the whole Sharpie fad, I just use WHSmith's CD markers. They're just pens!

Most of us were using Sharpies well before David Beckham got involved and the reason they're popular is probably that, like Bikes, there are far more gaffed and special versions available than any other marker. For one routine I use a home gaffed Pentel marker as it’s thicker than a Sharpie and does the biz far better !

Yeah, it's because they're the most commonly gaffed markers, and you can thank their ubiquity in the States for that. I was actually delighted to see them come into wider recognition in this country lately, because now it's actually something you might happen to have on you instead of some dodgy magician's kit. Well, more like as well as some dodgy magician's kit.