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Dear TM members, I recently opened a new deck of cards and following my usual ritual I took out the advertising cards and the Guarantee joker.

I always keep the "proper" Joker in the deck as a bizarre form of unconscious fomality and it suddenly hit me that this Joker represents a unique opportunity in terms of both patter and magical imagination yet I know only of two trick using the card. One of Guastaferro's and one of Bannon's.

Would you please oblige me in unearthing some more interesting uses, concepts, tricks or ideas using this forgotten gem of a card that is so uniquely singular in it's existence.

Thanks.

So do you mean you want to do a trick using one card only? I know one trick using a one card only I normally use one of the jacks for this but you can use a joker just as well. It involves a little story pattern as well but also cutting the card a bit and folding it. You can re-use it tho.
This might not be something you are looking for but thought Id suggest it anyway
Jan

I was watching the Get Nyman dvd the other day and he had the best use of Jokers ever.


Put them in your gimmicked deck.


When you take the deck out of the box, make a display of removing the jokers and discarding them as it sends a signal to your audience that it's really a normal deck. Its beauty is in its simplicity.

They make nice short cards. Also, they're my buisness cards
But as for a routine... maybe a more meaningful acr (first thing that came to my head).. I'm sure you'll come up with something if you wait for the right inspiration (and it will). I could only say what I would do, which I doubt is what you'd want to do.

reveals

If you do any effects where someone's chosen card changes into an indifferent card, I've always felt it seemed a little more 'deliberate' if that indifferent card were a joker.

Obviously there's the old 'talking joker' idea, which has never appealed to me- but I did like the Corinda one in which the condescending nature of it was surpassed and it became more sophisticated: and of course it is a textbook example of simplistic method subordinate to an interesting and presentation with variety.

if you've got two, do the old card reveal thing as mentioned on card the joker is holding, but use a colour change move...to either make it appear or dissapear...both meaning the joke is on you - the magician...

surley the joker card is begging for one of thoughs torn and restored do dads.
they make good locator cards and are great for thoughs tricks were a freely choosen card is the only one with a x on the back ala sankey or other sticky situation.

In one of Iain Moran's dvds, I think it's covert magic, he has a great effect using jokers. Depending on your venue it may work and it may not. It uses a couple gimmicked cards which must be re-stacked after each performance.

Still, it's a great effect.

It's a good idea to collect and keep, Jokers, as they heve many uses in many effects.

A good example of this is Mike Close's (?) version of 'New Jazz Aces' (Ortiz).
Instead of using 4 aces and 4 black cards, Mr Close uses 4 blank-faced cards and 4 Jokers. The fact that all Jokers look the same is utilised in this routine.

Another interesting routine is 'Deja Vu Jokers' from 'At The Card Table' (Ortiz). This is a one-at-a-time 4 Joker assembly, with a kicker of the 4 Jokers immediately dis-assembling back to their respective packets.

I wonder if there are any one way forcing decks made of jokers.. just a thought

Yes, there are.

Thanks.

It's the ones made of the advertising cards you want to stay away from