Four Kings are shown quite cleanly one at a time and placed on the spectator’s hand. A magic pass and the cards are turned over to reveal four spot cards. No extra cards, no deck involved, no switching – truly it’s as clean as that. I created a routine around the effect and called it The Fastest Card Trick in the World and today I’d never go to a show without it. Yes it’s fake cards but hey - Henry Evans won best card magic at FISM years ago and every effect was achieved with fake cards. It fulfills my philosophy of “Keep it Simple Stupid.” And it works and looks like real magic. .

It’ so good that one of the top five professional card men in the business ordered it from me – and bought two. And he uses it alongside his incredible sleight of hand routines., just like Dai Vernon who mixed sleights with fakes to create visual magic.

I used to sell this item and my routine at my lectures around the country and I found recently that I have a few left in stock.  So I’m thinking of putting this effect – The Four Kings – out again on the market so I’ll probably get a demo made to be included in these blogs. Watch this space.

But in my half century plus of magic there are not one but three magicians who impressed me the most -Dai Vernon, Fred Kaps and John Ramsay, particularly the latter. I saw Dai Vernon when I was in my twenties and whilst I was nowhere in that league I was impressed with the sheer breadth of his knowledge and ability and particularly with the fact that he was not just a specialist in one faction of magic technique. He was as adept at doing a bottom deal as he was in using a hook coin, a faked card or a pull to achieve the miracles that he presented. All credit to Harry Stanley who first brought him over to this country.

Then Fred Kaps. His perfection in thinking and handling was superb and whatever he turned to was the result of outstanding natural ability and technique at which he practised much more than most. To present the floating cork on television with Michael Parkinson, so casual, so natural and then hand the cork to Parkinson was masterly and made you believe in magic. And if you see his tapes note his facial expressions both on and off stage. He showed real surprise and enjoyment in what he was doing and that emotion was conveyed to the audience who joined in. He was magic.

And lastly Johnny Ramsay. I was privileged to see this Scottish grocer and amateur magician in many private sessions in our hotel bedroom at conventions along with other Ramsay fans Jack Avis, Roy Walton and Bobby Bernard.An event that was photographed and published by the national press. But it was Johnny’s naturalness, timing and misdirection that would beat you, long before such strategies blossomed in the USA. Vernon praised Ramsay as the finest close-up magician he had seen and many overseas magicians travelled to his little town on the West coast of Scotland just to witness first-hand his unique and very personal magic. I could write reams about Johnny Ramsay (and probably will) for he was well ahead of his time with outstanding magic that was disguised with his Scottish mannerisms and quaint ways. There are a few (very few) films of him working around today but if you want to get a very good idea of his magic and his way of working get hold of a tape of his magic performed by Scottish magician Andy Galloway (available from International Magic U.K.) who was a protege of Johnny and who was taught his methods and presentations for over a period of seven years. You’ll be fooled (as you always were with Ramsay) and its the nearest thing you’ll see to the original. Or if you fancy diving into the very special world of Johnny Ramsay and his routines, Galloway has published many of his original  effects in several books available from Andy Galloway and dealers.

You’ll probably gather from the above wordage that I am a great fan of Ramsay but I also would count as great close-up workers Vernon and Kaps. There aren’t so many around like that today. They had a very special charisma. They were something special that made them stand out in the crowd. More about Ramsay later and a few routines perhaps that I published based on his style.

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He has now lived there for the past forty something years, in a delightful Victorian House in Helensburgh just outside of Glasgow, bringing up his two daughters, Sarah and Julia who now work in that famous little magic shop on Queen Street. He has also been the fountainhead of inspiration of some of Scotland’s finest card magicians – Peter Duffie, Gordon Bruce, Jerry Sadowitz and many others.

 It was an excellent meeting that revealed our joint  realisation and gratitude at what we have both witnessed and been part of for the last half century. In terms of card work he reveres natural card handling, the philosophy of his idols Johnny Ramsay and Dai Vernon and he is dismissive of what he terms “card juggling”

He believes that a card should be simply selected, placed back in the pack, handed to the spectator to shuffle and then returned, the magician having the selection totally under is control throughout the whole procedure. Roy does exactly that and it is sheer poetry to see his work and style that has sixty years of study, research and practice behind it. The world acknowledges Roy Walton as one of the greats of close-quarter work and I am honoured to have been his friend.

It was a wonderful afternoon of reverie and nostalgia recalling the time we were all part of a group of six young magicians of which sadly three have passed on. Jean too, looking the image of her father George “Gilly” Davenport has many memories of magic having been brought up in one of the leading magic families of the land although her chosen career was in nursing.

Both now retired, both looking well although Roy now has impaired hearing but  still enjoying their business, their family and keeping connections with the magic world.

Roy is now sought as a world figure, author and skilled card  technician notably for his effect “Card Warp” which has put food on the table of magicians the world over. Not a vindictive man but he is saddened at the way that the effect is now sold shamelessly all over the world with little or no credit as to it origin. He shrugs his shoulders and says it’s the way the world is today. Roy told me that at one time a magician came into the shop with some tricks to sell. When he opened his case it was full of “Cascade” – a trick that was originated by Roy years ago! Another who feels the same is Angelo Carbone whose effect “Out of Order” is on sale at dealers all over the world with no acknowledgement or permission from the originator. Angelo at FISM in Stockholm complained to the organisers at the effect being offered for sale in the dealer’s hall. The organisers then asked him to prove he was the originator of the effect! A man who is very adept with computers he pulled up a mass of documentation  proving his claim which only resulted in the effect being removed from the stands despite the trading rules stating that anyone selling unofficial magic items would be ejected from the convention.

Despite all this Roy is still upbeat about magic, doesn’t worry too much about exposure, has a strong belief in the genesis of magic and the work of the early masters – Vernon, Marlo, Paul Le Paul, Leipzig, Malini and many others.

It was an afternoon I will long remember and I am very proud  to have enjoyed his friendship for over half a century.

Yet whilst he was entertaining on a cruise ship which called at Acapulco he was asked by the staff captain to show some magic to the local press and dignitaries at a cocktail party on the stern of the ship. This is what he did

He had a card selected and shuffled back in the pack by the spectator. He then threw the whole pack over the side so that all the cards fluttered down and settled on the surface of the sea.

They all looked over the side and saw that all the cards were face down except one. The selected card! And all the evidence was floating out to sea.

The point of the story is this. If one of the greatest sleight of hand magicians of all time chose to force a card and switch the pack for a deck of double back cards and a double face card – why can’t we?

Vernon was a master of sleight of hand but he knew the guaranteed impact that could be achieved by using fake cards. He was an astute all round magician who was as adept at dealing a bottom card as he was in using a hook coin, if the effect was achieved more easily.

I saw and met Vernon in the 50s/60s and witnessed him using fake cards, pulls and other gizmos as well as his famed sleight of hand but by keeping one guessing as to his method he was always one ahead of you. He was a great magician.

Incidentally I understand that the cards in the water was recently presented on TV in a swimming pool. So what’s new?John Ramsay was another who used this ploy but more of that later. 

Any Okito or Boston Box routine requires the magician to replace the lid and at the same time secretly turn the box over. The standard move is to rest the box on your left palm and the left fingers secretly turn the box over as your right hand replaces the lid. Another method is to rest the lid on the edge of the box on the table and in the act of replacing the lid and picking the box up, it is secretly turned over in a one hand movement.Fred Kaps did it this way.

Some magicians do this well but many fumble the move so that the spectator knows that “something” has happened. Using Dai Vernon’s expressed philosophy that all movements should be natural, Jack devised this beautifully simple and natural move to turn the box over without raising suspicion.

HANDLING

1. Place the Boston Box containing four coins to the left of your table just in front of your left hand. (In using the Boston Box a fifth coin is in the recess in the bottom).

2. The upturned lid is similarly placed in the same position just in front of your right hand. Both hands are palm down and relaxed.

3. Cross your hands, placing your left over the right in preparation to pick up the coin box and the lid.

4. The extended fingers of both hands momentarily cover the box and lid. Grasp the sides of the lid between your left thumb and fingers as your right hand simultaneously grips the box in the same manner.

5. Immediately uncross your hands and turn your right hand palm up to freely show the box. The box is held in a natural position and the audience see the single coin nested in the recessed bottom but everything appears normal. In this simple, natural movement you have turned the box over. 

6. Pivot the lid downward and place it on top of the box.

If you use a regular Okito Box, keep your right hand cupped or turned inward so that the spectator cannot see the solid brass bottom, then replace the lid as your hands pass each other.

This is a stunning move that has revolutionized the Okito Box routine for many magicians that was devised with a simplicity that was the hallmark of Jack Avis’s work. The move is described and illustrated in greater detail in a excellent book by Jack Avis called “Vis a Vis”, published by Richard Kaufman, Kaufman and Company, 4200 Wisconsin Avenue, NW,  Suite 106 – 292, Washington D.C. 20016, USA.

DAI VERNON- overcame the problem by having a small phial of rosewater and glycerine in his jacket pocket and he would dip his hand in the pocket, pick up a few drops and rub them around his hand. He tipped Jack Avis off about this and Jack used to make up the mixture and lightly moisten his hands before showing a trick.

CARDINI – had a similar method so Bobby Bernard tells me. He had a small tin of wax sewn into the inside of his dress suit and if his hands became dry during the act he would rub his fingertips on the wax to restore their tackiness.

DARYL- showed me a cute impromptu comedy idea. If he needed to dampen a finger or thumb before he started the routine he would say “I have to check the direction of the wind for this trick” and then he would openly put his finger in his mouth, hold it aloft and walk around as if checking his position! Then he would transfer the moistness on his finger to his thumb. It’s a fun bit very much in Daryl’s style that overcame the problem of  getting a sticky finger.