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I’m mainly interested in sleight of hand magic and I want to buy a book. Is there such a thing like an “Encyclopaedia of sleight of hand” which contains all sleights from “Cray man handcuffs” to “The Pass” or “the sponge push-in vanish”?

If there isn’t anything like that I thought about buying:

Card College 1-5 by Roberto Giobbi
Modern Coin Magic by JB Bobo
+ Any ideas???

Also, is “The art of sleight of hand DVD” any good?

As you might guess, my aim is to become an excellent (or the best) sleight of hand magician.

card college: excellent, but a touch pricey
BoBo's: cheap and fantastic!

if you mean the Art... from Sankey then don't buy it!

there is an "encyclopedia of card sleights", try hunting (or searching) the reviews section for this (and anything else you're thinking of buying)

I'm not overly familiar with a lot of the newer titles but if you are relatively new to this stuff you can't go wrong with the Jeff McBride Manipulation Videos or the Bill Tarr books (Now You See it; Now You Don't)... there's also some older manuscripts that the magic shops used to sell that are simply classic to this kind of thinking... I know Bill Malone invested a tremendous amount of time studying them back in the days of our youth and I've always seen Bill as one of the best slight guys I've ever met.

I'm familiar with card maipulation skills (False cuts and shuffles and the pass) so there is no point in buying the Jeff McBride Manipulation Videos is there?

The jeff McBride DVDs have an amazing range of material on them, they go well beyond simple stuff.

It depends on the type of manipulations and slights you want to do. Jeff Mcbrides card manipulations dvds might not be for you(although they are excellent), but his other manipulation dvds have coins, thimbles, sponge balls and many other objects, Personally, id recommend all of them!

You can't go wrong with Bobo's! The first few chapters alone will make you a better magician. Plus there is a whole chapter on the Mister's Dream routine.

I still believe that Bill Tarr's "Now you see it now you don't " (all the 3 volumes are quite important. At least I was borne under those volumes, in the 80's.
Today there is interactive learning (DVD's, videos, internet etc.) which is very good for all those people that are not lucky (like I was) to have a magic club in the same town (I had the I.B.M. linking ring 204, Rome, Italy).
But I stick on my "old fashioned" suggestion: Bill Tarr.

The Bonnie Kids

For cards, you will probably want to buy Expert Card Technique by the authors of Royal Road to Card Magic. It is a classic and will help you more with countless sleights. It also has a chapter on self working effects.