Card throwing is the art of throwing standard playing cards with great accuracy or force. It is performed both as part of stage magic shows and as a competitive physical feat among magicians, with official records existing for longest distance thrown, fastest speed, highest throw, greatest accuracy, and the greatest number of cards in one minute.
First popularized in the West among stage magicians during the 1800s, the art of throwing cards is called scaling. [1] [2] Techniques used among performers today are attributed to stage magicians in the late 19th century. The exact origins of "flying card" tricks are unknown, but Alexander Herrmann is widely attributed with first including card throwing in a major act. He would use custom-made cards, sign them, and then throw them into the audience as potential souvenirs. The magician Howard Thurston also used card throwing as a major part of his act. The cards that they used, however, were heavier than those commonly used today.
Many magicians commissioned specially printed cards, known as throwing cards, throwouts, scaling cards, or souvenir cards to use for these purposes. Generally, such cards featured the image and name of the magician and often featured optical illusions, mystical images, and text and graphics from other advertisers. Propelled Pasteboards, a blog dedicated to the history of throwing cards and related ephemera, contains examples of hundreds of specially printed throwing cards used by magicians and other performers to advertise their performances.
Today, magicians all over the world use card throwing as parts of their act. Ricky Jay, Rick Smith Jr. and Aditya Kodmur [3] are among the most well-known people to frequently use card throwing during performance.
Playing cards and similar paper objects have very little mass and are not very aerodynamic except under certain circumstances. Simply throwing a card with no technique (that is, applying lateral speed only) usually will result in it fluttering about and falling to the ground. Achieving accuracy, distance, and force with a card requires giving it both lateral speed and angular momentum (i.e. "spin") along its z-axis. The spin creates gyroscopic stabilization so that the card's flat profile remains mostly parallel to the direction of travel and thus suffers the least possible air resistance.
There are multiple techniques for throwing cards in this manner. The technique often attributed to Alexander Herrmann, and taught in Ricky Jay's book Cards as Weapons (1977), involves gripping the middle of the card horizontally between the thumb and the middle finger, while the index finger rests on the corner of the card nearest the hand and away from the body. The wrist is cocked inward at a 90-degree angle, then flicked briskly outward, propelling the card. For distance and power, the technique adds motion of the forearm bending at the elbow straight outwards from a 90-degree angle simultaneous to the flicking motion of the wrist.
In another method created by Howard Thurston, the card is gripped between the first and second fingers, usually of the left hand, and propelled in a similar manner. There are also variations on both grips and throwing styles, some of which depend on the type of flight the magician is attempting to achieve.
Forceful throws will usually spiral somewhat on the way to the target when thrown at a long distance since most cards are not perfectly flat. With a given deck, the bend of the cards are usually similar enough to each other that this spiral is easily predictable, and a practiced magician can hit very small targets even at many yards away. It is also possible to throw a card very flat at lower speeds to get the card to land in or on top of something.
Many tricks done with thrown cards are designed to not only impress with the magician's dexterity but work on a common theme in stage magic: the illusion of danger. While the illusion of danger can be achieved by outright deception, another method is to play on people's popular misconceptions. In the case of card throwing, the magician achieves this effect by throwing the card at fragile targets such as newspaper, cigarettes, fruit, hot dogs, foam, or any other substance that the card will easily imbed in or break. While none of these objects act like human tissue in terms of wound ballistics, the magician is counting on most audience members thinking they actually are comparable, and therefore believing he or she has turned a harmless playing card into a deadly projectile.
The impressive speed that magicians could throw the cards gave rise to a myth that a card could kill or seriously injure someone if thrown correctly by a person with enough force. The book Cards as Weapons by Ricky Jay is believed to have propagated this myth even though it was originally intended to combine instruction with satire.[ citation needed ]
This myth was tested on the Discovery Channel program MythBusters , and subsequently debunked. Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage was already familiar with the throwing card trick and was shown to be adept at performing it, with his maximum throwing speed being measured at 25 miles per hour (40 km/h). The episode also featured Ricky Jay himself, who spoke of writing the book and admitted he is most likely responsible for the genesis of the myth. The hosts were able to measure the speed of his throws at about 90 miles per hour (140 km/h). After failing to throw the cards into a ballistic gelatin target with enough force that would result in injury, they used an electric motor to mechanically launch a card at 150 miles per hour (240 km/h). Offering his own body as a target, host Jamie Hyneman allowed the launcher to be fired at the exposed skin of his abdomen from a few feet away, which only resulted in a superficial paper cut. The hosts concluded that a playing card does not have sufficient mass to cause lethal damage to human tissue. [10]
Card throwing was a plot point in the 2016 film Now You See Me 2 .
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a finish to make handling easier. They are most commonly used for playing card games, and are also used in magic tricks, cardistry, card throwing, and card houses; cards may also be collected. Playing cards are typically palm-sized for convenient handling, and usually are sold together in a set as a deck of cards or pack of cards.
Shuffling is a procedure used to randomize a deck of playing cards to provide an element of chance in card games. Shuffling is often followed by a cut, to help ensure that the shuffler has not manipulated the outcome.
The Magician (I), also known as The Magus or The Juggler, is the first trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional tarot decks. It is used in game playing and divination.
Sleight of hand refers to fine motor skills when used by performing artists in different art forms to entertain or manipulate. It is closely associated with close-up magic, card magic, card flourishing and stealing. Because of its heavy use and practice by magicians, sleight of hand is often confused as a branch of magic; however, it is a separate genre of entertainment and many artists practice sleight of hand as an independent skill. Sleight of hand pioneers with worldwide acclaim include Dan and Dave, Ricky Jay, Derek DelGaudio, David Copperfield, Yann Frisch, Norbert Ferré, Dai Vernon, Jerry Sadowitz, Cardini, Tony Slydini, Helder Guimarães and Tom Mullica.
Richard Jay Potash was an American stage magician, actor and writer. In a 1993 profile for The New Yorker, Mark Singer called Jay "perhaps the most gifted sleight of hand artist alive". In addition to sleight of hand, he was known for his card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter. He also wrote extensively on magic and its history. His acting credits included the films The Prestige, The Spanish Prisoner, Mystery Men, Heist, Boogie Nights, Tomorrow Never Dies, Heartbreakers, State and Main, House of Games and Magnolia, and the HBO series Deadwood. In 2015 he was the subject of an episode of PBS's American Masters, the only magician ever profiled in the series.
Card manipulation is the branch of magic that deals with creating effects using sleight of hand techniques involving playing cards. Card manipulation is often used in magical performances, especially in close-up, parlor, and street magic. Some of the most recognized names in this field include Dai Vernon, Tony Slydini, Ed Marlo, S.W. Erdnase, Richard Turner, John Scarne, Ricky Jay and René Lavand. Before becoming world-famous for his escapes, Houdini billed himself as "The King of Cards". Among the more well-known card tricks relying on card manipulation are Ambitious Card, and Three-card Monte, a common street hustle also known as Find the Lady.
The Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game is a collectible card game developed and published by Konami. It is based on the fictional game of Duel Monsters created by manga artist Kazuki Takahashi, which appears in portions of the manga franchise Yu-Gi-Oh! and is the central plot device throughout its various anime adaptations and spinoff series.
A trick deck is a deck of playing cards that has been altered in some way to allow magicians to perform certain card tricks where sleight of hand would be too difficult or impractical.
David Frederick Wingfield Verner, better known by his stage names Dai Vernon or The Professor, was a Canadian magician.
Rick Smith Jr. is a professional illusionist and card thrower from Cleveland, Ohio. Having derived his throwing skills from his time as an NCAA Division I pitcher at Cleveland State University, Smith currently holds three world records: farthest throw of a playing card, highest throw of a playing card, and most playing cards consecutively thrown into a horizontal target. Smith has released a number of instructional films on card throwing and magic.
Alexander Herrmann, better known as Herrmann the Great, was a 19th-century French magician. His wife, Adelaide Herrmann, was famously known as the "Queen of Magic."
This is a glossary of conjuring terms used by magicians.
Joshua Jay is an American magician, author, and lecturer. He has performed in over 100 countries and was awarded top prize at the World Magic Seminar in 1998. He worked with Penn and Teller on the show Fool Us, and he holds a Guinness World Record for card tricks. Jay has performed on shows including Good Morning America and The Today Show. In January 2018, Jay was recognized by the Society of American Magicians for his contribution to the art of magic.
Close-up magic is magic performed in an intimate setting usually no more than 3 meters from one's audience and is usually performed while sitting at a table.
Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close-up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means. It is to be distinguished from paranormal magic which are effects claimed to be created through supernatural means. It is one of the oldest performing arts in the world.
Chris Linn is an American magician, comedian, and entertainer.
Throwing is a physical action which consists of mechanically accelerating a projectile and then releasing it into a ballistic trajectory, usually with the aim of impacting a distant target. This action typically refers to hand-throwing by animals with prehensile forelimbs. In this case, the projectile is grasped in a hand while the proximal limb segments move through compounded kinematic chains to impart a mechanical advantaged swinging motion. For other animals, the definition of throwing is somewhat unclear, as other actions such as spitting or spraying may or may not be included.
The Living Playing Cards is a 1905 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès.
The Rising Card is a popular category of magical illusion in which the magician causes randomly selected playing cards to spontaneously rise from the center of a deck. Many variations of this trick exist and are performed widely. The effect can be accomplished using a variety of methods and techniques, ranging from pure sleight of hand to complex electronic and mechanical solutions.
v.tr. 4. To throw (a thin flat object) so that it soars through the air or skips along the surface of water