Out-to-Lunch

Out-to-Lunch, a principle effect in magic, was a marketed effect in 1946 in which an initialed business card with a picture on it (originally a Hindu boy climbing a rope) disappears in a packet and reappears as a blank card saying "Out to Lunch", still with the original initials.

Marketed in 1946 by Clare Cummings and Bob Ellis, it was based on a masking principle shown them by Cliff Lester, although later found published in his Twenty Magical Novelties (1930_ by Edward Bagshawe as part of "The Recurring Name" effect.

Genii awarded it as the year's best pocket trick.

Max Maven has found these earlier sources:

• The premise of the principle in William Robinson's book, Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena (1898), entitled The Interrupted Flap
• Tom Bowyer's "A Message From Nowhere" in the April 1928 Linking Ring
• William Larsen Sr., "Finger Prints" in the July 1923 Sphinx."