Stop Trick

Stop Trick is a classic card routine where a selected card is found in deck at the point a spectator says "Stop" as the cards are being dealt face down on to the table by the magician or the spectator. Another variation is for the magician to say "stop" while the spectator is dealing. See also Any Card at Any Number.

Variations

• Faire apparaitre la carte au mot "Halte!", page 19 in Supplément à la nouvelle magie blanche dévoilée written by Jean-Nicolas Ponsin (1859)
• To Divise the Pack Into Several Packets on the Table, allowing the company to stop you at any moment and to cause the top card of the heap fast made to change into the chosen card, page 65 in Modern Magic by Prof. Hoffmann (1876)
• "THE UBIQUITOUS CARD" (stated to be one of the leading items in the repertory of Nate Leipzig) in Art of Magic (1909)
• A "SVENGALI" EFFECT By Frederick Furman in Magical Bulletin (December 1916)
• "Stop" - Some New and Effective Methods by Lawrence B. Burrow in Sphinx(April 1918)
• THE IMPENETRABLE STOP TRICK in HAND No. 1. IMPROMPTU CARD TRICKS as part of the THE SIGN OF EXCEPTIONAL MAGIC series. Originally sold in 1921.
  • This version, however, the magician says "stop". From the advertisement "After shuffling his own pack, anyone thrusts the joker in, noting the card lying above it. After cutting, he deals the pack into two heaps and hands you one of them, retaining the other. He thinks hard of his card and you both begin dealing from your packets in unison. When you stop he does, and turning up the card he stopped at he finds it is the one he selected."
• A clever "Stop" Trick in More Manipulative Magic by Charles Eastman (1929)
• "Another Moe Mental Force" by Moe Seidenstein described in Moe and his Miracles by William P. Miesel (1986) which is said to be from a manuscript called "Moe's Miracles" (1930). It was also published in "Moe's Five Dollar Manuscript" (1955).
• "The Triple Climax" by Arthur Buckley originally in Improved and Original Card Problems (1930) and republished as "Buckley's Slap Shift" in Card Control (1946)
• Say When! in Al Baker's Book One (1933) reprint in The Secret Ways of Al Baker (2003)
• The Psychological Stop Trick in Encyclopedia of Card Tricks (1937)
• The Psychic Stop! in Expert Card Technique (1940)
• "Stop Card" Mystery by Martin Sunshine in Tarbell Course in Magic, Vol. 5 (1948)
• A Perfect Stop Effect in The Card Magic of Le Paul (1949)
• The Stop Effect by Ed Marlo in Side Steal (RCT 4) (1957)
• The Notis Stop Trick in Dai Vernon's Inner Secrets of Card Magic (1959)
• Stop When Ready by Karl Fulves in Packet Switches (Part One) (1972)
• Stop Me in The Card Classics of Ken Krenzel (1978)
• Double Stop by Martin Nash in Sleight Unseen (1979)
• The Stop Trick by Bruce Cervon in Ultra Cervon (1990)
• The Stop Trick by Martin Gardner in Card College, Vol. 4 (2000)

References

• http://www.geniimagazine.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/211923/fpart/1