Trick deck

For the grand finale the magician explains that he or she actually knew ahead of time which card the spectator would select, rather than having secretly turned it over during the performance.

Both decks are meant to convey the idea that the magician did not perform the intended effect through the use of sleight of hand.

[2] It is worth noting that such decks have fallen out of favor amongst professional magicians because of an increased suspicion amongst audiences regarding the use of gimmick props.

Often mistakenly credited to Dai Vernon, Don Alan or Eddie Fields, the most-used presentation of an "invisible" deck of cards was invented by J.B. Bobo.

The trick's title stems from the classic presentation of this effect, in which the magician hands the spectator an imaginary, or "invisible" deck.

Michael Close also uses a handling in which the invisible deck is tossed back into a paper bag, whereupon it becomes real and visible.

In the more comedic version of the routine, more focus will be drawn to the part of the effect where the spectator is handling the cards.

Often, the magician might criticize the spectator's card-handling abilities, or remind him or her to take the cards out of the case before trying to shuffle them.

A more serious routine can be performed, which focuses more on the magician's mindreading abilities and the fact that the spectator had a completely free choice of card.

When the spectator names his or her card, the deck is extracted from the box with the chosen parity, even or odd, facing the magician.

The simplest of these, often described in amateur magic books, involves cutting a hole in the back of the carton so that the performer can surreptitiously push up the top card with their finger.

Similarly, even after being lost in different parts of the deck, the magician can move multiple cards to specific locations using basic shuffles.

[1] The cards of a stripper deck are slightly tapered, so that the sides no longer form a perfect rectangle.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Marshall Brodien sold 17 million Svengali decks under the name TV Magic Cards.

Finally, because the deck is widely sold in joke and novelty shops, many laypeople are familiar with it.

[12][13] Writing pads or books using the same principle have also been created, to force the spectator to choose the content of a seemingly random page.

Now, using the sequence of the Si Stebbins Stack, the magician adds three to the card value they peeked, and cycles one suit.

The Si Stebbins Stack also allows for more complex mind reading techniques using additional mathematical principles.