Buckle Count

The Buckle Count (or Push-off Count) is a method for doing False Counts with cards, usually showing a number of cards as a fewer number than you actually have.

First described in Expert Card Technique (1940) and generally credited to Dai Vernon with a description it featured in Stars of Magic Series 5, No. 3, Dai Vernon’s Mental Card Miracle (1949).

Bart Whaley's The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Magic (1989) credits the invention to A.J. Cantu who taught it to Charlie Miller in the late 1930s.

Also was popularized by George Sands in his Super Optical Illusion trick in Hugard's Magic Monthly (December 1946) which prefigures the mode of packets trick.

See also another false count referred to as a Push-off Count.

Routines

• Ace Assembly, page 24 By Ed Marlo in Off the Top (1945)
• Make Believe by Dai Vernon. Developed in the 1940s and published within the Vernon Touch column of the July 1980 issue of Genii.