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I'm working on a modern-day magician novel--I've introduced this before, but I repeat it for every post which deals directly with it.

I have written a trick into the book that I need a little help on.

If a magician was to take a card or a coin, have someone sign it, and then, from the opposite side of the room, switch the card or coin with another that someone else signed, without the magician ever crossing back to the other side, could this be accomplished without the use of confederates or a dummy signature, i.e. one that would seem to be the other volunteers signature and would then be switched by the magician prior to the volunteer's inspection. I'm sorry if this is all confusing.

My experience with magic is purely as a spectator and as a reader. (I've read Hiding the Elephant, Abracadabra!: Secret Methods Magicians..., parts of The Illustrated History of Magic, bits and pieces of Mark Wilson's and The Expert at the Card Table, The Magician and the Cardsharp, and in fiction The Prestige and Carter Beats the Devil. I'm currently working my way through that biography of Houdini that contends he was a low-low-low-level spy.)

That being so, my experience with the workings of tricks is somewhat limited. Again, though, I do not wish to know the workings of such a trick, only if there is some undiscernable method that would allow its functioning without one of these two qualities. If there is, I would love to know how I could eliminate the possibility of that method.

Thank you very, very much.

[Complete Disclosure: I am asking this question now because, months after writing a scene such as the one I have described into my book, I personally witnessed a magician perform almost the same effect. I am not attempting to gain access to secrets, but if the fact that answering this question might possibly reveal said secret, I can subsist without knowing the answer. However, this scene is crucial to the work, and it is crucial to the scene that there be no method other than stooge by which it could function. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks again!]

surely you can make it be whatever method you want. and even if there is no method to achieve an effect you want to describe then what does it matter? it's a work of fiction, you can write whatever you want and let people guess. unless you're going to start giving away how the tricks work then don't worry about it too much
it's like the whole "the orange tree is a nice trick, but you can't actually do it now can you...?" or "the balancing sword" bits from illusionist that people are saying you cannot actually perform, but so what? was a good film anyway, and made people have a few random guesses as to how it could be done.
sorry. I'm ranting now.
go with a stooge, it's easiest, and unless you have some stupidly large pull then it's probably the easiest (mayeb only) way to pull it off

card or coin stand and a cover, spec covers the card / coin which operates the mechanism to deliver said card or coin to magician who swaps it for other card /coin then reverses mechanism and there you go switched.

in litary terms thats all the explanation you need to give unless you want to go with the trained ant theory.

The reason I asked is that I want it to stump another magician.

The reason it needs to be a stooge is that the other magician can't believe that the volunteer would be a confederate. I don't want to start rambling with unnecessary details, but that's the long and short of it.

It's not that I want to detail every possible method, it's that I don't want someone reading it to have the realism of the novel broken by their understanding of the basic principles of magic.

Oooh, trained ant theory, I like that.

Actually, I do really like the joke of that. I might have a character use that phrase at some point, if it's all right with you. (Clearly, no actual trained ants will appear in the novel.)

A good magician can make anyone believe that happened, even if it was physically impossible to do it. What actually happened and what people remember are often two different things.

I'm aware, but it has to stump a magician that won't consider the most obvious solution, that of a stooge.

It's the 'obvious solution' that always fools other magicians

copyright wrote:It's the 'obvious solution' that always fools other magicians

Amen to that, copyright...

All right, sweet. So that seems like a legit situation?

I'm mad proud. A point of honor about this book for me is that I want the magic scenes to ring true to magicians. I'm glad that this part, at least, seems to pass the test.

Thanks, guys!

Acctually Houdini did the orange tree.

Quite a few people performed the Orange Tree. And, Karl Germain created a variation with a blooming rose bush.

I think he just meant that the orange tree as seen in the movie was impossible. I mean, that thing grew real oranges. Though we see the method at the end in the journals, and it's much closer to how it was originally done, the method by which we see it performed is CGI.

Someone, I think it might have been on these forums, said that the director of the Illusionist wanted to create the same sense of awe in a modern film audience that would have existed in a Victorian stage audience, and so they deliberately spiced things up, i.e. the ghost the man put his hand through.

Demitri wrote:Quite a few people performed the Orange Tree. And, Karl Germain created a variation with a blooming rose bush.

I mean he was the creater of it.

Houdini didn't create the effect - Robert-Houdin did.