Card Magic Classification

There have been many attempts at organizing and classifying Card Magic.

Roberto Giobbi, in his Genii Magazine column The Genii Session, published a list of basic card magic effects in the July 2006 issue.

In the September and November 2006 issues, Giobbi also published a 2-part list classifying the great themes, effects and tricks in card magic, based on a previous list by Juan Tamariz. The purpose of this list was to clarify the terminology used when discussing card routines.

Denis Behr's created an online Searchable Magic Book database of the magic books he owns and created his list of "themes" for card effects.

Giobbi's Basic Effects of Card Magic

Robert Giobbi's card magic occurence classification is:

• Animations
• Coincidences
• Discoveries
• Distant Magic (tricks done over the phone, radio, TV, internet, etc.)
• Divination, Mental
• Divination, by Super-Powers
• Flourishes
• Gags with Cards
• Gatherings
• Hypnosis & Hallucinations
• Intelligent Deck
• Magnetism and Equilibrium
• Mathe-Magical Curiosities
• Multiplications
• Penetration, Solid Through Solid
• Predictions
• Productions
• Spelling
• Stories with Cards
• Superpowers
• Topological
• Torn and Restored
• Transformation
• Transposition
• Traveling cards
• Turnovers
• Vanishes

Great Themes, Effects and Tricks in Card Magic

Robert Giobbi's thematic card magic occurrence classification is:

• Aces & Kings Transposition
• Aces to Order (Spectator names the suits in a specific order, and the aces are cut to in that same order)
• Acrobatic Jacks (Elevator Trick)
• All Backs
• Ambitious Card
• Backfire Assembly (After assembling to fourth ace, 3 aces travel back to their original packets)
• Between Your Palms
• Brainwave
• Call to the Colors
• Calculating Deck
• Card at Number (often called "Any Card at Any Number")
• Card in Anything
• Card Through Handkerchief
• Card on Ceiling or Wall
• Card to Wallet
• Cards and Cases (routines involving the card case as part of the effect)
• Cards and Coins
• Cards and Dice
• Card(s) Through Table
• Cards Across
• Cards to Pocket or Up The Sleeve
• Cardtoon
• Clock Trick
• Coincidencia Total (Multiple coincidences)
• Collectors
• Color Change (face of card)
• Color Changing Card (back of card)
• Color Changing Deck (backs)
• Color Divination
• Cutting the Aces
• Diminishing Cards
• Do As I Do
• Dr. Daley's Last Trick (Two red aces switch places with two black aces)
• Dunbury Delusion (Magician finds selected card, even though he apparently passed it)
• Elongated Lady
• Esoteric (also known as "Haunted Pack")
• Everywhere and Nowhere
• Fingerprint Card Trick
• Folded Card to Box or other place
• Follow the Leader
• Four Ace Assemblies
• Four Ace Productions
• Gags With Cards
• Gambling Demonstrations
• Gambling Exposés
• General Card/Universal Card
• Haunted Deck
• Homing Card, to pocket (A card repeatedly and magically travels to the performer's pocket)
• Homing Card, Braue/Kaps (A card is repeatedly removed from a packet, yet keeps returning)
• Hotel Trick
• Invisible Deck
• Lie Detector
• Lifting/Cutting Any Number of Cards
• Linking Cards
• Magnetized Cards
• Matching the Cards/Magician Makes Good (3 cards cut to, but don't match a prediction card. Magician transforms them into the 3 matching values.)
• Memory with Cards
• Mental Poker Divination
• Multiple Card Discoveries
• Mutus Nomen Dedit Cocis (mentally selected pairs of cards are divined by the performer)
• Mystery Card (card set aside at the beginning of the routine turns out to be the selected & signed card)
• Naming the Cards from Pocket
• Nap Hand Deal (From the audience, the performer divines 3 poker hands held by spectators on the stage. He also makes the performer with the worst hand win.)
• Nudist Deck (A deck that is blank on both sides magically prints faces and backs)
• Oil and Water/Color Separation
• Open Prediction
• Orders, Miraculous (Mixed cards order themselves)
• Out of This World (Spectator sorts cards by color without looking at their faces)
• Princess Card Trick (One of a group of cards is thought of, and divined by the performer)
• Protean Deck (3 cards are selected, and the rest of the packet or deck changes into copies of each of those cards one at a time)
• Rapid Transit/Two Card Transposition
• Reading the Cards of Any Deck
• Remember and Forget (3 spectator each choose a pair of cards, remembering one and forgetting the other. Performer locates the 3 remembered cards, then transforms them into the forgotten cards)
• Reverse Location (reversed card found in deck)
• Reverse Card Routine (packets of cards are repeatedly mixed face-up into face down, straightening themselves out each time)
• Rising Cards
• Roll-Over Aces (Cards shuffled face-up into face-down. First aces are located, then a Royal Flush)
• Sandwich Tricks
• Six Card Repeat
• Soldier's Prayer Book (story tricks with an apparently shuffled deck)
• Solid Deck
• Spectator Does Magic
• Spectator Cuts to the Aces
• Spellers
• Card Stabbing
• Stop Trick (selected card is found in deck at the point spectator says "Stop")
• Sympathetic Cards (Four cards assemble under one cover)
• Sympathetic Cards, Milton (Two packets of cards, each consisting of a single suit, are used. When one packet is shuffled, the other packet magically winds up shuffled)
• Tearing the Deck
• Telephone Card Magic
• Ten Card Poker Deal
• The 21 Card Trick
• The Trick That Cannot Be Explained
• Think of a Card
• Three-Card Monte
• Topological Card Magic
• Torn and Restored Card
• Travelers (Four selected cards to four different pockets)
• Triumph (Deck is shuffled face-up into face-down after selected card is returned. Deck magically rights itself, except for the selected card)
• Twisting the Aces
• Unshuffled (Name of selected card appears on the side of the deck, as the performer shuffles)
• Vanishing Card
• Vanishing Deck
• Visitor (Signed card travels from between 2 black kings to between 2 red kings)
• Weighing the Cards (Spectator cuts off a packet of cards, performer weighs them with his hand, and announces how many are in the cut-off packet)
• Wild Card (Multiple duplicates of a card change into duplicates of another card)

Denis Behr's Card Themes

• Animation
• Appearance
• Chaos & Order
• Coincidence
• Divination
• Do as I Do
• Four of a kind Effects
• Gags & Curiousities
• Gambling
• Growing & Shrinking
• Illogical Things
• Location
• Mates
• Mind Reading
• Number Effects
• Penetration
• Phone Effects
• Prediction
• Red Black
• Rubberband & Cards
• Sandwich & Co
• Signature Effects
• Skill Demonstration
• Spelling & Lie Detector Effects
• Super-Senses
• Sympathetic Effects
• Think of a Card
• Topological Effects
• Torn & Restored Card
• Transformation
• Transformation - special (card - object)
• Transposition
• Traveling
• Turnover & Reverse
• Vanish

Potter

List of card magic related themes contained in the Potter Index :

• Ace Transposition
• Aces and Fan
• Aces and Kings
• All Backs Card Routine
• Alphabet Card Tricks
• Ambitious Card Routine
• Any Card Called For Found At Any Number
• Any Card Called For Produced From Pocket
• Birds of a Feather
• Blank-Faced Deck Tricks
• Blindfold Card Tricks
• Brainwave
• Card Across
• Card and Arrow/Dart/Paper Clip/Postage Stamp/Ribbon/Rubber Bands
• Card and Slate Prediction
• Card Appears on Some Object
• Card at One Number in the Pack Brought to Any Other Number
• Card Balancing
• Card Colour Changes
• Card Colour Separation Tricks
• Card Divination
• Card Found At Any Given Number in the Deck
• Card Found Between/in/under Objects
• Card Locations
• Card Memorizing
• Card Penetrated By Some Object
• Card Penetrates Some Object
• Card Predictions
• Card Put in Pocket Found To Be Chosen Card
• Card Revealed By a Telephone Call/ By Paper Tearing/By the Pecking Bird or Similar Mechanical Novelties
• Card Revelations
• Card Sandwich
• Card Spelling
• Card Stabbing
• Card Tapping Tricks
• Card Transformations
• Card Transpositions
• Card Tricks Based on Magic Squares
• Card Tricks By Coincidence and Matching
• Card Tricks Conducted By Telephone/Mail
• Card Tricks Performed By Spectator
• Card Tricks Performed In Darkness
• Card Vanishes
• Cardcase Vanishing
• Cards and Slate Prediction
• Cards Produced From Pack Placed in Pocket
• Cards Reveal Date Number or Year
• Cards to Pocket
• Cutting Any Number of Cards Called For
• Dead Man's Hand
• Deals (Poker, Bridge, Brag Poker, Rummy, Gin Rummy, Nap, Pinochle)
• Deck Vanishing
• Do As I Do
• Elevator Cards
• ESP and Design Card Tricks
• Everybody's Card
• Everywhere and Nowhere
• Face Up Face Down Card Tricks
• Fortune Telling With Cards
• Four Ace Trick
• Four Ace Trick With Aces Assembling One At a Time
• Four Burglars
• Four Card Assembly
• Homing Card
• Lie Detector Card Tricks
• Lie Speller Card Trick
• Micro-Macro
• Milton Aces
• Miniature Playing Card Tricks
• Miraskill
• Missing Card Named After Running Through the Pack
• Name O' Card
• Name or Word Card Tricks
• Naming Any Card Cut To
• Naming Position of Any Card In the Deck
• Naming the Card At Any Given Number in the Pack
• Naming the Number of Cards Cut
• Naming the Top or Bottom Cards of Several Heaps After Cutting
• Oil and Water
• Optical Illusion Card Trick
• Out of This World
• Phantom Card Trick
• Phoenix Card
• Piano Card Trick
• Princess Card Trick
• Repeat Three Jack Deal
• Rising Cards
• Royal Assembly
• Royal Marriages
• Showing a Pack of Cards Apparently All Alike
• Soldier's Bible
• Stop Trick
• Sucker Card Tricks
• Tearing a Pack of Cards in Half
• Telling the Names (or Number) of the Cards By Their Weight
• Ten Card Poker Deal
• Ten Card Trick
• Think Stop
• Think-A-Card
• Thirty Card Trick
• Three Card Monte
• Torn and Restored Card
• Travellers
• Triumph
• Twenty-Five Card Trick
• Two Card Monte
• Ubiquitous Card
• Up and Down Card Trick
• Vanished Card Found In Pocket
• Word or Name Cards
• You Do As I Do - You Can't

References

• Denis Behr's Card Effect Themes
• Zenneth's Card Plots