Clock Trick

Clock Trick is a classic plot in card magic in which the cards are displayed corresponding to a 12-hour face of a clock and a card is divined usually using a mathematical principle.

History

A version done with coins, or other objects, was found by Bill Kalush in Nicolas Chuquet's Triparty, written in 1484, but never published.

Publications

• De plusieurs nombre par ordre commençant par l'unité et disposé en rond, deviner lequel on aura pensé in Problèmes plaisants et délectables qui se font par les nombres written by Claude-Gaspar Bachet (1612)
• "The Clock" in More Conjuring by Hercat (1912)
• Encyclopedia of Card Tricks by Jean Hugard (1937)
• On the Clock Effect by Jon Racherbaumer (1971)
• Numerous versions in The Lost Notebooks of John Northern Hilliard (2001)

References

• Clock Trick category in Denis Behr's "Conjuring Archive"