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Roberto Giobbi starts his section on palming in his seminal Card College series by saying “...palming remains relatively little used by most card workers...”

Now this struck me, who the hell in their right mind would be doing card work and not palming. It's insanely good.

So what I'm wondering is, do you find it to be true?

I palm, laterally, via tenkai, traditional palm...lots.

Harry, it's like some card magicians don't do D/Ls. I don't understand that.

But if you want to learn the true art of palming, Michael Close takes palming to the extreme in his workers. Even teaches how to switch a palmed card between hands in front of the spectator. Very good material.

I don't do any double lifts, but I do palm. All the time.

Lateral palm to inside jacket pocket as standard when I have a jacket and no table.
A one handed top palm is also creeping in thanks to Mr Dowden

I suppose it's one of those things - if you've never tried it, you don't know what you're missing .

I was guilty of never using the palm .... it was just one of those things - I could never see the use of it .... it just seemed a waste of time learning, when I was sure I could get by without it.
Now, one of my fav tricks involves the use of a palm - which I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be able to perform without palming .

Who uses Palming? Mandrake raises his (grubby) hand with pride - it's the only bit of card tricky stuff I do, it works well and I have no shame whatsoever in doing it !

If you're nervous about palming then get an Extractor. A signed card is returned to the middle of the deck. Deck is put in your jacket pocket. Within two seconds the signed card is in an impossible location (under glass on table, in spec's pocket, etc). Easy as.

what's frightening about palming a card?

If they called it holding without looking , Im sure more people would do it.

Thats the secret after all. Its not having huge mits, so you can hide a card into it... its holding the card, and not looking at it.

I used to use the cop quite a bit, and would have no qualms getting to grips with more palming should the need arise. I have part 1 of Close's ebook on palming around somewhere or other. What I find, though, is that there aren't that many mental card effects that require it. That could be a chicken and egg thing though.

I palm all the time - especially as my primary control is the side-steal.

All the time, one hand top palm all the way.

daleshrimpton wrote:what's frightening about palming a card?

If they called it holding without looking , Im sure more people would do it.

Thats the secret after all. Its not having huge mits, so you can hide a card into it... its holding the card, and not looking at it.

Absolutely right. I have small hands but palm confidently because the spectator should never be looking at the hand holding the card.

Lee Smith wrote:All the time, one hand top palm all the way.

I feel more comfortable palming off the bottom of the deck.


Its just occured to me that puting the card back on the deck, is way more nerve racking than taking it away, because theres a wee bit more heat on the deck , than on an "empty" hand

I think its an essential utility if nothing else:

"Do you mind if I shuffle them too?"

I quite like to test how far I can push it when palming: gesturing, pointing, writing etc.

Its rather amusing to blatantly gesture under the spectators nose, and if it gets spotted, play it off as a "joke palm"..More often than not it never gets spotted, its a win-win scenario!

To conclude... I enjoy palming.