How to stack dice for fun – Senator Crandall (book)

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SKU: CRANDDICE Categories: BOOKS / LITERATURE, CLOSE-UP, NEWEST PRODUCTS

Description

Senator Crandall states that he first saw Dice Stacking done by Tony Platt in 1934, at Platt’s tavern in Milwaukee.

Tony Platt went to Chicago in the early forties and taught the Dice Stack Routine to several magicians there, including Ed Marlo and Johnny Paul. Paul worked on the trick quite a bit, and added some unique touches. A few years later, when Marlo put out a book on dice manipulation (Shoot the Works), he included the Dice Stack, giving credit to Paul and Platt. But according to Crandall: “It’s a good book with much dice material but the illustrations are incorrect.” Subsequently, very few magicians were able to learn the trick from the Marlo book, and it remained the secret skill of a few in the Midwest, most notably Johnny Paul, who taught it to Don Alan.^[1]

In 1946, when Crandall started working at Lou Rivkin‘s Moderne Lounge in Chicago, he took a “refresher course” on Dice Stacking from Don Alan, “who did it and all other close-up routines well.” Several years later, at a magic convention, Crandall taught the Dice Stack to Lou Tannen, who went back to New York and taught it to Audley Walsh. Walsh “was skilled with dice switches and manipulations, but didn’t do stacking until Lou showed it to him.” Shortly thereafter, Walsh published his Dice Dexterity (1953). It included the Dice Stack, but again the description was lacking an element crucial to learning the technique.

Five years later, in 1959, with still no proper explanation of the Dice Stack in print, Crandall wrote his own manuscript, called the Bartender Dice Routine, which for the first time explained and showed the necessary “figure 8” cup movement. But the manuscript had a small circulation, and most magicians remained unaware of the “real work” on the Dice Stack.

Fast forward over fifteen years, and the Dice Stack had become quite well-known among magicians, thanks in large part to Johnny Paul. But the details of how to actually do it still eluded almost everybody who couldn’t get in-person lessons. So, in 1974, The Senator released How to Stack Dice for Fun and No $!, which he wrote, illustrated, and published himself. This is the 2nd printing by Magic Limited.