A release by Ted Lesley’s Wonder Workshop…. long unavailable.
This trick was invented by the late Harry Baron and was published in the first volume of Ken deCourcy’s wonderful magazine “Coffeebreak Chronicle”. Harry Baron was very ingenious in giving old gimmicks and tricks a new “twist”. Let us give a typical example of his creativiness:
Ken deCourcy found in the February 1946 issue of “Mac’s Monthly” a bright idea of Harry’s: Predicting the amount of loose change in a spectator’s pocket (via “Swami Gimmick”), which well known mentalists (Maurice Fogel and Punx for example) used for years as an opener to their mental act!
Ken de Courcy and Ted Lesley talked the trick over on the phone recently, and Ted, too, found an improvement to Harry Baron`s routine. Finally Ken deCourcy was so kind, granting us permission to put this mental-miracle with playing cards on the market. We promise, you will have a lot of fun performing “Decisions! Decisions!”
EFFECT:
(Harry Baron’s Routine):
The performer asks a gentleman to come up and help, then hands his wife or girl-friend a small bell.
The man is given a wallet to hold in the form of a tray while the mentalist shuffles a pack of cards. he starts to deal the cards face down on the wallet and the lady is requested to ring the bell at any time she likes.
When she does so, the gentleman is given the choice, whether he wants the card just dealt, the one in the performer’s hand, or the card which would be dealt next. He chooses one of the three and that goes into his pocket unseen.
He is shown the other two cards, then all the cards are placed away and the mentalist reclaims the wallet. From it, he extracts one card which is shown to the helper and the audience.
The assistant takes the card from his pocket and finds it matches the one from the wallet. As you`ll realise, good stand-up mental card effects are rare these days, particularly when they are as fair-looking (and easy) as this one.
Ted Lesley’s improvement is the use of a specially constructed envelope that looks more innocent than the wallet. This envelope is pure gold and the principle can be used with many different envelope styles for different tricks.
You receive a sample of the envelope that will allow you to duplicate it for your own use (it will take less than 2 minutes to make one). You also receive a special deck of cards with English and German instructions.
