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Biddle Trick

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Biddle Trick is what has become the name of a card trick in which a spectator's selected card vanishes and appears reversed in the deck held by another spectator. The trick was invented by Richard Bruce Ferguson and published in 1951 as "WOW!." It utilizes the Biddle Move.

History

When Elmer Biddle published his Biddle Move in April 1947[1], he provided magicians with inspiration for its use in many different card effects. (See Biddle Move) But one trick utilizing the Biddle Move has become known as "The Biddle Trick." When published in 1951, it was described:

The effect is this: The magician has a spectator shuffle a deck of cards. He takes it back, and removing the top five cards, he spreads them face up on top of the face down deck. He invites a spectator to touch one card. The five cards are then squared, still face up, on top of the face down deck. These five cards are now counted off face up one by one, and placed in the spectator's left hand, to be held firmly. The magician then places the deck in the spectator's right hand, the hands being held as far apart as possible. Without again touching the cards in any way, the magician orders the chosen card to pass from the spectator's left hand and fly into the pack in his right hand, face upwards. After the hocus-pocus, the spectator spreads the cards in his left hand, and finds he has only four, the chosen card having vanished therefrom. Spreading the face down deck with his right hand, he finds the chosen card in the middle, face up, and staring him in the face. "Wow!"[2]

Richard Bruce's method involved doing the Biddle Move with a full deck, and then casually cutting the deck before placing it in the spectator's other hand. The idea of using only half the pack when doing the Biddle Move, and then recombining the pack to "load" the card face-up in the middle, didn't appear in print until 1960[3], when The Gen published "Biddle-Thru," a trick by the inventor of the move himself, Elmer Biddle. Ron Bauer independently developed the idea, along with several techniques for the Biddle Move, in the early 60s.[4] (See Biddle Move)

In Bruce's "WOW!", the packet and deck never came near one another after the cards had been counted. But in Biddle's "Biddle-Thru," after the performer had so economically maneuvered the reversed card to the center of the deck, he placed the packet of cards back face-up on top of the pack. Then he tapped the deck, and spread to show the selected card had "penetrated" to the middle.

The now-popular "Biddle Trick" is really a combination of these two items, owing its plot to Bruce's "WOW!", and its method to "Biddle-Thru."
  1. Elmer Biddle, "Transcendent," Genii, Vol. 11 No. 8, April 1947, p. 241
  2. Pvt. Richard Bruce, "WOW!", Hugard's Magic Monthly, Vol. 9 No. 4, September 1951, p. 835
  3. Elmer Biddle, "Biddle-Thru," The Gen, Vol. 16 No. 3, July 1960, p. 69
  4. Roberto Giobbi, "Bibliographic Notes," Card College Vol. 3, XXXX, p. 780