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Just want to say hi to you all. My name is Dave, and I'm totally new to this.

For years I have worked as a musician before my "retirement" (getting way to old for the long drives etc) and I have finally turned my love of all things magic and performance, to actually learning the craft. At 39 years old, I'm not expecting much more than to show my kids and family some cool stuff, and make them stare in wonder! (Just to make my kids think I'm cool would be a start! Haha.)

I've always been a huge fan of Penn & Teller, Copperfield and even one of the local guys here, and watching some youtube footage gave me the bug again.

I don't seem to lose any of the "wonder" when I know how its done. It just makes me more interested to create.

Only learning the basics of control and some flourishes at the moment and have some serious cleaning up to do before anything is ready to show! But I'm loving it.

I have "Expert at The Card Table - Erdnase", "Expert Card Technique - Hugard" and "Card Control - Buckley" on the way, which I'm hoping will give me a good grounding in the art.

But if there are any books that started your learning, I would be very grateful if you can send me along the right road. Any help would be appreciated.

Anyway, nice to meet you all. I hope to learn and share.

Kind regards
Dave

Hi, welcome to TM!

Welcome!

I'm hardly a card expert - I tell everyone I don't do card tricks - but I think you'll find that the books you mention are too advanced if you're just making a start. I began many years ago with a book by Walter Gibson, What's New in Magic, which is still available secondhand. It teaches very thoroughly and clearly the Hindu Shuffle, Charlier Pass and DL, and there's lots of other useful stuff too. If you're only interested in cards, look out for another book by Gibson, The Complete Illustrated Book of Card Magic. Others will probably recommend Hugard's Royal Road to Card Magic, but I personally find it turgid and I got stuck on something in the first chapter.

For general magic, including a good grounding in cards, start with the Mark Wilson Course. The paperback edition has an extra chapter which is missing from the hardback.

I hope that's helpful. I'm sure others will disagree with some of my comments, but of course I don't do card tricks anyway.

Barry

Thanks Barry. I really appreciate this. I will look into the books you mentioned and add them to my Christmas list. I'm working on my passes, switches and cuts from youtube videos, but any extra help would be fantastic.

Hi and welcome to TM

I prefer DVD's to books, although I do have some books. My very first DVD, which I highly recommend, is "Born to Perform - Oz Pearlman".

Another good DVD is "The Royal Road to Card Magic". Make sure it's the 5 DVD set and not the 4 DVD set; as the former is far superior than the latter.

Hi Moonbeam,

Thanks for the tips. I have been watching quite a bit of youtube for some of the sleights and switches but I do find that they can be hit & miss in both teaching style and content.

Royal Road is ordered! But I ordered the book. I'll look into DVDS.

I have pre-warned my wife that Christmas is going to be tedious for her this year!! Although she is starting to know more about playing cards than me... I literally can't wait to see what I get. This weekend she asked me "Have you got an omnideck?" Haha.

Happy new year to all. Christmas has seen a vast improvement in Cards in my house.

Just in case you are interested, I now have Royal Road To Card Magic, Expert At The Card Table and Card Control. Over Christmas break I also read Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind and Confessions of A Conjuror.

What a rabbit hole I have jumped down! Youtube has helped a great deal with some great moves, Chris Ramsay, Daniel Madison and Alex Pandrea being my favourites. I am now the proud owner of quite a few gimmick decks too. Stripper, Svengali, Rainbow, Invisible and Brainwave to name the important ones. But for now my attention has been taken by the bottom deal and the diagonal palm shift....

So much to learn!

Thanks.

Happy New year to you as well, the only magic I got over the festive period was a deck of miniature cards which dropped out of my Christmas cracker!

DaveNewbie wrote:Hi Moonbeam,

Thanks for the tips. I have been watching quite a bit of youtube for some of the sleights and switches but I do find that they can be hit & miss in both teaching style and content.

Royal Road is ordered! But I ordered the book. I'll look into DVDS.

I have pre-warned my wife that Christmas is going to be tedious for her this year!! Although she is starting to know more about playing cards than me... I literally can't wait to see what I get. This weekend she asked me "Have you got an omnideck?" Haha.

There is an annotated e-book to the Royal Road to Card Magic with updates and improvements. The foreword has been written by legendary memory expert and card magician Harry Lorayne. As for the author of said book I happen to know him really well and can confirm that he is a genius of the first magnitude in these matters. Anyway here is the book in question.


https://www.lybrary.com/the-annotated-r ... 23422.html

Mandrake wrote:Happy New year to you as well, the only magic I got over the festive period was a deck of miniature cards which dropped out of my Christmas cracker!

Haha. I got one of those too... Sat thinking about how I could use it for ages before handing it to one of my kids!

Bought my nephew a magic wand too. He's four. Didn't put it down for the whole of Christmas. Broke it twice. Fixed it twice. Just kept walking around and taking a bow. I got him doing a red to blue colour change. He genuinely thought it was the wand.

My 16 year old voiced her opinion that my magic was rubbish... told her to think of a card. Said "No, not the Queen of Hearts" - she couldn't believe it!

She chose a different card ... then I got her with the ID! Result.

DaveNewbie wrote:... then I got her with the ID! Result.

Gets' em every time!!!

In previous years crackers have rewarded me with miniature cups and balls, so small that only Munchkins could use them, that thing where you chuck a metal ring onto a spring and it becomes 'impossible' to get off unless you unwind it, Psychic Fish (fun for everyone), those very annoying 'age revelation' cards where you have to do a lot of adding up and finally a thing with three dice and a sort of tube. Sadly the instructions are so small only an electron microscope can read them so I have no idea what the smeg it's supposed to be. All are ensconced somewhere in the vaults at Mandrake Towers, can't remember where and I have no real inclination to go looking!

Haha. I noticed this year that the mystery of the psychic fish has packed up and left my children... what a shame.

On another note... this morning the "Christmas money" from my parents... (mum gave up on me years ago - "You're nearly forty, get some food shopping.) has been converted to Dani DaOrtiz's The Mirage...

I'm hoping that it is mainly based on Robert Houdin's trick with a different name. Some heavy learning by the look of it.

Wish me luck!