Open Travelers

Open Travelers (also known as the Invisible Palm) is the name of a trick by Ed Marlo, based without credit on an earlier routine of Bill Miesel's titled Invincible which had been published a year earlier. It is an Ace Assembly which apparently involves only the four Aces, with no indifferent cards. In both of these routines, the leader Ace packet is openly spread to show more Aces and there is no suggestion of "palming" in the patter.

The addition of both the idea of using an invisible palm and the Findley Tent Vanish belong to Larry Jennings. Jennings created the "Invisible Palm" plot as well as the most popular and sophisticated methods for performing the routine, in which the which the principle packets never come together, is now considered one of the classics of card magic. Jennings' entire series of handlings are explained in detail in Jennings '67 by Richard Kaufman, along with a full history of the credits and Bruce Cervon's repeated attempts to take credit for Jennings' routine. Cervon's Aerodynamic Aces uses no palming, and the plot points of using the invisible palm and Tent Vanish were suggested to Cervon by Dai Vernon. Other than that, Cervon's handling is identical to Bill Miesel's Invincible but no credit to Miesel was given by Cervon.

Dai Vernon's Travelers is an entirely different effect, published in Stars of Magic, in which the four Aces travel from the deck to four different pockets and is not to be confused with Marlo's Open Travelers.

Published history

• Invincible by Bill Miesel in The New Phoenix No. 362 p. 277 (August, 1961)
  • A four ace assembly where the aces are not covered by any cards.
• The Open Travelers by Edward Marlo in The New Phoenix No. 375, page 329 (December, 1962)
  • Based on ideas from his Real Gone Aces and uses the deck at certain points as in Elias' Under Cover Aces.
  • Ed introduces the effect with stating that Neal Elias sent him a ace assembly in 1955 that only used one cover and mentioned that it might be possible to eliminate the cover all together.
• Face-up Flyers by Dai Vernon and Bruce Cervon in Epilogue No. 4, Nov. 1968.
• Aerodynamic Aces by Bruce Cervon in Lecture Notes, 1969. (Reprinted in The Cervon File, 1988.) Identical structure to Miesel's Invincible with the presentation idea of an invisible palm. In Genii (Vol. 51 No. 10, April 1988 (p. 604), Cervon writes that he was unaware of “Invincible” when he published his version.
• Jennings' Open Travellers in Expert Card Mysteries by Alton Sharpe. (1969)
• Addition to Open Travelers by Steve Spilman in Expert Card Chicanery compiled by Alton Sharpe (1976).
• P.H. Invisible Palm by Paul Harris in Las Vegas Close Up (1978) and later revised in Art Of Astonishment Volume 3. (1996)
• Open Air Ace Assembly by Ed Marlo in Card Finesse by Jon Racherbaumer has a four card handling. (1982)
• Travlrs 1 by Chris Kenner in Totally Out of Control (1992)
• L'Empalmage Invisible by Richard Kaufman in Le Magicien No. 137 (1994)
• Jennings '67 by Kaufman has all of Larry Jennings many handlings starting from his very first experiments and leading up to the classic handling, which describes subtleties which had not previously been disclosed. These are the definitive explanations of the routine by the creator.(1997)
• Commercial Travel by David Regal in Close-up and Personal (1999)
• Final Palm by Jack Parker in Genii 2007 June
• The Forbidden Palm by Tom Stone in e-book Random Walk (2007)

Variations

• No Extra cards
  • Lonesome Travelers By Larry Jennings in Japan Lecture Notes (1979)
  • Open Air Assembly by Jon Racherbaumer in Card Finesse (1982)
  • Surrounded Open Traveler, 3rd Method By Ed Marlo in New Tops, Vol. 24, No. 4, April 1984.
• Aces change to others cards kicker ending
• The Mysterious Case of the Open Travelers By Don England in Don England's T.K.O.s written by John Mendoza (1980)
• "Disguised Travellers" in The Paul Hallas Files, Vol. 1 Video (1989)
• Cards are done face-up.
• Coin routines inspired by the plot
  • From CoinMagic by Richard Kaufman (1981)
    • Open Travelers No.1 by Richard Kaufman
    • Open Travelers With Edge Grip by Kaufman and David Arthur
    • Open Travelers No.2 by Geoffrey Latta
• Gaffed, Market versions
  • Las Vegas Aces by Cody Fisher in DVD Cody Fisher on Magic (2006).

References

• http://archive.denisbehr.de/archive/route/entries.php?url=10,46,75,336
• http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=296391&forum=2&start=0
• Conjuring Credits' article on cards:open_travelers