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Follow the Leader
Follow the Leader is a classic plot in card magic where some red cards and some black cards are placed face down in two piles. As the top cards are turned face up and switched, the pile of the face down cards are shown to have followed with them.
According to an article in Ibidem (No. 6, July 1956), Faucett Ross discovered the "Follow The Leader" effect in 1929. While staying at the home of T. Nelson Downs, Ross came across a letter written from amateur German magician Dr. Reinhard Rohnstein to Ottokar Fischer in which the trick was described and credited to a Vienna amateur. Ross showed the trick to Dai Vernon.
Dai Vernon published his handling in 1933 in Five Close-Up Problems (also included in the Early Vernon book in 1962) as "Follow the Leader", the name in which this effect has come to be best known.
Peter Warlock in a lecture entitled The Creation of a Magical Effect given April 24, 1951 then in The New Pentagram (December 1981) states that Martin Chapender, at the turn of the century was making twelve court cards resting against a glass change place with twelve pip cards placed in a similar manner.
Examples
- Edward Victor's "Royal Exchange" in Magic of the Hands (1937)
- Al Baker's The Migrating Cards in Greater Magic (1938). Reprint in The Secret Ways of Al Baker (2003)
- Edward Brown's "Pictures and Pips" effect (1938)
- Audley Walsh's Ten Card Color Change in Tarbell Course in Magic - Vol. 2 (1942).
- Technicolor Follow the Leader By Peter Warlock (1951) [added the variation that the backs of the cards were also of different colors] Reprint in Pallbearers Review, Vol. 10, no. 11, September 1975, page 1050.
- Ed Marlo's Follow the Leader in The Cardician (1953)
- Karl Fulves' Fellow Followers and Mini Followers in Packet Switches (Part One) (1972)
- Karl Fulves' Random Followers in Packet Switches (Part Two) (1973)
- Larry Jennings' Larry's Leader in Larry Jennings on Card and Coin Handling (1977)
- John Fedko's Exchango in Apocalypse Vol. 3, No. 12, dec. 1980.
- Peter Warlock's "THE NON-SLEIGHT 'FOLLOW THE LEADER'" in New Pentagram, Vol. 13, no. 10, December 1981 (republished in One Hundred by Warlock By Elizabeth Warlock)
- Milt Kort's Following Elias in Epoptica Yearbook 1984, page 308.
- Gerald Deutsch & Peter Marshall's Follow the Leader Updated in Apocalypse, Vol. 9, No. 2, feb. 1986.
- Jose Carroll's Red and Black in 52 Lovers I (1988)
- Alex Elmsley & Brother John Hamman's The Atomic Aces in The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley - Vol. 1 written by Stephen Minch (1991)
- Juan Tamariz' Fabulous Change in Apocalypse Vol. 17, No. 10, oct 1994.
- Dr. Reinhard Rohnstein & Dai Vernon's Day Trippers in Card College, Vol. 4 (2000)
- Darwin Ortiz's The Color of Money in Scams and Fantasies with Cards (2002)
References
- Nick Trost's Subtle Card Creations, Vol. 3 (2011)
- http://archive.denisbehr.de/archive/route/entries.php?url=10,46,19,295