Description: Dai Vernon's Tribute to Nate Leipzig - Lewis Ganson Title: Dai Vernon's Tribute to Nate LeipzigAuthor: Lewis GansonPublisher: Harry StanleyPublication Date: 1963HardcoverSize: 6 x 9Pages: 192Edition: 1st (Stanley Edition)Book Condition: Very Good-Clean, tight pages-Slight ear on coverDust Jacket Condition: None Dia Vernon's expert sleight of hand technique and extensive knowledge garnered him great respect. He was a mentor to numerous famous magicians. Due to his extraordinary knowledge of sleight of hand, Vernon has long been affectionately known as The Professor. Harry Houdini (who in his early years billed himself as "The King of Kards") often boasted that if he saw a card trick performed three times in a row he would be able to figure it out. Vernon then showed Houdini a trick where he removed the top card of the deck and placed it second from the top, then turned over the top card to again reveal the original card. Houdini watched Vernon do the trick seven times, each time insisting that Vernon "do it again." Finally, Houdini's wife and Vernon's friends said, "Face it, Houdini, you're fooled." For years afterward, Vernon used the title The Man Who Fooled Houdini in his advertisements. Dai Vernon spent most of his life traveling all over the United States of America looking for card cheats, and anyone who might know anything about sleight-of-hand with cards. He was famously under-credited for much of the work published in Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue's Expert Card Technique, though a later edition included an extra chapter which acknowledges Vernon's contributions. In fact, a huge portion of the sleight-of-hand had been discovered by Vernon over years of searching. Leipzig was one of the genuine stars of magic in the vaudeville era, a fact made all the more astonishing when one recognizes that Leipzig was essentially a performer of intimate close-up and parlor magic, who managed to per-form on large vaudeville stages with the assistance of a committee of four spectators, along with a compelling degree of personal magnetism. But the story is even better than that, for Leipzig worked professionally as an optician well into his late 20s, whereupon he switched to show business and was an almost immediate success, soon being booked into the legendary Keith Circuit by no less an agent than William Morris, and later represented to the New York rich and famous by Francis Rockefeller King—who also maintained one other magician in her stable, by the name of Dai Vernon. Vernon, who was 20 years younger than Leipzig, was a mere boy when he first approached Leipzig backstage after a show, and the two became colleagues and friends for life. Having seen Leipzig perform countless times, Vernon knew the act by heart, move for move and line for line, and hence it is with the benefit of Vernon's careful attention that we are gifted with this exquisite record of a great performer's work. While in the recent Canadian documentary on Vernon, Persi Diaconis recounts that Leipzig's widow complained about Vernon's acquisition or perhaps publication of Leipzig's secrets, the fact is that were it not for Vernon's tireless promotion of the magicians he had seen and known—notably Leipzig and Malini, but countless others as well—so many of them would have barely become footnotes to magic history, rather than monumental figures whom will now never be forgotten. The book describes Leipzig's stage act in detail—opening with thimble manipulation, and then, after inviting the committee of four to take seats upon the stage, consisting entirely of card material thereafter, including color changes, the Slap Aces, various card locations, the Card Stab, and finally the classic version of the Cards Across known as The Twenty Card Trick. Included in this segment is a fairly detailed description of Leipzig's work on the Color Change and the Side Steal, a move which is now generally credited to him (he likely invented the Coin Roll as well). Quite simply: There is not a single item amid this program of card material that a close-up or small platform magician could not make a living with today. The book then continues with a substantial quantity of close-up material of which Leipzig regularly made use. This includes now legendary pieces like the Cigars From Purse (rarely seen but a longtime staple of John Carney's repertoire); the Torn and Restored Cigarette Paper (a close-up favorite of the late Michael Skinner's, but without the sucker repeat phase); the Ring on Wand (which Ten Ichi would later obtain by trading the secret to his original handling of the Thumb Tie); plenty of additional card material including now-standards like Leipzig's Opener and the Matching-Up Trick (one of several tricks that were taught to Leipzig by Vernon, and in this case, also used by Vernon throughout his life); and a substantial quantity of coin magic, including a wonderful coin quickie entitled Right There (that was a staple of my repertoire in my youth and is well worth the effort required to master its elegantly brief execution, complete with the all-important script); Penny Out of a Glass of Beer, in which a coin dropped into a glass by the spectator mysteriously rises to the top and then jumps out of the glass (a trick with which a young Leipzig fooled the great Horace Goldin, and which half a century later was a staple of Steve Spill's repertoire [now proprietor of Santa Monica's Magicopolis] during his magic bartending days); the Copper and Silver Transposition in a Spectator's Hand (also a staple of Malini's repertoire); and Leipzig's Pride, better known as the Stack of Quarters. Also notable is the inclusion of Leipzig's Slow-Motion Coin Vanish (an indelible memory of which I shall always retain, having seen Dai Vernon per-form it for me at one of our first one-on-one encounters; the early 1980s would see a small resurgence of interest in this plot, notably by John Cornelius, Derek Dingle, and Geoff Latta). Contents: 9 Foreword 12 Chapter One Nate Leipzig 22 Chapter Two Leipzig’s Card Sleights22 Colour Change25 Side Slip26 Peek Control28 The Pass29 Double Lift 32 Chapter Three Leipzig's Stage Act—I32 Thimble Routine 38 Chapter Four Leipzig’s Stage Act—238 Colour Change Routine 42 Chapter Five Leipzig's Stage Act—342 Slap Four Ace Routine 48 Chapter Six Leipzig's Stage Act—448 Card Locations 54 Chapter Seven Leipzig's Stage Act—554 Card Stabbing 64 Chapter Eight Leipzig's Stage Act—664 Twenty Card Trick 70 Chapter Nine A few grips with a Cane 76 Chapter Ten Tricks with Knots76 Fade-a-way Knot78 Handkerchief Off Wrist79 Double-Triple Knot 86 Chapter Eleven Cigars from Purse 94 Chapter Twelve Tear up with a Twist 106 Chapter Thirteen Coin Quickies106 Thumb Roll107 Coin Roll108 Boomerang Coin110 Balanced Coin111 "Right There!”115 Slow Motion Coin Vanish118 Coin from hand to hand120 Coin on the Knee121 Another Coin Vanish 124 Chapter Fourteen Coin Tricks124 Coin in Glass129 Copper and Siver Transposition130 Penny Out of Glass of Beer131 Leipzig's Pride 138 Chapter Fifteen Off the Beaten Track138 The First Born Child139 Creation of Life140 Reading the Pencil141 Cigarette Paper Prediction243 Tumbler Vanish145 Dice Moses1146 Levitation Of A Cigar Or Cigarette149 Ring On Stick150 Vanish Of Matches151 The Stretching Match152 Ball Vanish 156 Chapter Sixteen Some Famous Card Tricks156 Leipzig's Opener157 Acrobats160 Automatic Gambler162 Ambitious Card Quickie163 Mathematics165 Leipzig's Favourite Four Ace Trick167 The Matching-Up Trick169 Bottom Card Change170 Twirl Cut171 Card Change173 Knife Glimpse173 Reverso 176 Chapter Seventeen Tricks With Faked Cards176 Sympathetic Thirteen180 Princess Card Trick183 The Magnetised Cards 188 Chapter Eighteen Peeked At188 Palm Up188 Turnabout189 Spring Card Location189 Card Through Handkerchief190 The Rising Card191 Stop Trick191 Card By Thought Please examine the photos of this book. I have included photos of the index. I have also included photos of especially colorful, interesting or autographed pages. I will be happy to answer any specific question, just send me an Email! Listing info courtesy of: Magicref ATTENTION: A large part of the value of magic tricks and magic books is the SECRET!! As such, there are NO REFUNDS on magic tricks or books (unless I make a mistake, something is not as advertised, etc.)! I will try to be very detailed & accurate in my descriptions & also try to include the approximate skill level to assist in your decision, but I will not tell you how the trick is done! If you have any questions, please send me an Email BEFORE bidding!
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End Time: 2025-01-06T01:16:16.000Z
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