$40.00
ESTATE - Condition good
Ex Libris Kreskin with his signature
As one of Dai Vernon’s most dedicated students at the Magic Castle, Cervon did not cut corners. The material in this 31-page manuscript features highly sophisticated, diabolical construction designed to utterly destroy audiences—including other well-informed card men.
The Standout Routines
The booklet contains four main pieces, but two in particular became absolute modern classics in close-up magic:
The Dirty Deal: This is Cervon's legendary take on the classic poker deal plot. It relies heavily on psychological misdirection and a completely standard deck of cards. You cleanly deal a winning poker hand under seemingly impossible, fair conditions, but it's the rhythm and presentation that elevate it into a performance masterpiece.
The Cervon Cut-And-Restored Card: Widely considered one of the finest, most practical methods ever devised for this plot. A selected card is cleanly sliced into four distinct pieces with scissors and placed into a spectator's hand, only to instantly knit itself back together. The construction is incredibly clean, and the heat-bearing moments are perfectly covered by natural misdirection.
Purely Matter of Fact: A beautifully direct, deceptive location and revelation effect that relies on zero-glitch handling and razor-sharp economy of movement.
The Joker Transposition: A fast-paced, commercial packet effect where a joker and a selected card repeatedly switch places under increasingly impossible conditions.
Key Techniques introduced
Beyond the complete routines, the manuscript contains two highly influential utility tools that standard card workers still study today:
The Cervon Free Turn-Over Change: A brilliant, invisible utility switch used to swap a card while ostensibly turning it over on top of the deck. It relies heavily on natural handling and eliminates the telltale finger tension of older switches.
The Cervon Longitudinal Side Steal: Cervon's refinement of the classic side steal, designed to secretly extract a card from the center of the pack from a lengthwise (longitudinal) orientation rather than the traditional wide side. It offers impeccable angles when burning the deck from the front.