Magic at Your Fingertips by Milbourne Christopher & Hen Fetsch

A top-flight collection of 33 tested tricks and performance suggestions by two of America's greatest magicians and magic inventors, Milbourne Christopher and 'Hen' Fetsch.

We can't remember the last time we had so much fun enjoying a book on magic. No stuffy prose or verbose instructions here, Christopher and Fetsch reveal the inner workings just as if you're discussing them over a beer or burger at your favorite hangout.

Magic at Your Fingertips features chapters on close-up conjuring, mental magic, card feats, sorcery with silks and a wide assortment of unusual variety magic. It contains new and delightful wizardry for stage, intimate work, platform, night clubs, casino showrooms and hotels. The 33 tested effects are enlivened by Walt Kaeber's illustrations. Sid Lorraine wrote the sparkling Foreword.

Paul Fleming wrote:

All who keep posted on current magical literature are acquainted with the writings of these authors, each of whom has published several booklets and contributed frequently to the magic magazines. In Magic at Your Finger Tips they give fresh evidence of their originality, ingenuity, and industry.

This new booklet presents thirteen close-up effects, four feats in mental magic, five tricks with cards, five with handkerchiefs, and six with such dissimilar objects as ribbons, paper cups, candles, gloves, and ropes. Obviously there is plenty of variety in these thirty-three tricks, and there is quality as well. Without attempting to list all the items individually, we may indicate a few which seem to us worthy of special mention:

1. Climax Cup and Ball. A very clever routine with a tea-cup and a dollar bill that is wadded into a ball.

2. Impromptu Changing Bag. A simple but effective way to force a card, name, or number, by making use of a folded pocket – handkerchief.

3. Character Cards. An ingenious device (readily adaptable to other tricks) which enables the performer to have eight cards selected by eight different persons, sealed in separate envelopes by the spectators, and the envelopes thoroughly mixed, and then to discover each person's card.

4. Master Key. A neat variation of the "Seven Keys to Baldpate" lock trick.

5. Tear the Cards. After a chosen card and several others have been torn in quarters, dropped into a hat and well shaken up, the performer manages to pick out the quarters that make up the card that was selected.

6. Card from Pocket. An easy, bare-faced, baffling method of having a spectator pick a chosen card from "top, bottom, center" or any other part of a shuffled pack that has been placed in the performer's pocket.

7. Lightning Production. The instantaneous and startling appearance of a large silk foulard at the fingertips of each hand.

8. Burning a Borrowed Handkerchief. An explanation which places the famous Restored Handkerchief trick within reach of anyone who elects to do it.

Parenthetically, we must record a disturbing suggestion in one of the explanations – the return to a spectator of a borrowed paper dollar from which a corner has been torn for purposes of identification. Our concern is all the greater because we have recently witnessed public performances in which several tricks were concluded in this way. We sincerely hope that this sort of practice is not to become general. To us it seems scarcely fair play to return a mutilated banknote to a spectator who has been so kind as to entrust it to a magician. Perhaps the solution is for the performer (after the spectator has identified his bill by "matching" the corner) to take from his wallet a brand new dollar, give it in exchange for the mutilated bill, and thus relieve the obliging spectator of the trouble of pasting and passing the torn note. We are convinced that most audiences, and all "obliging spectators," would appreciate this act of common courtesy.

The eight tricks we have listed above are fair samples of the contents of Magic at Your Finger Tips, though there are doubtless others which will have greater interest for some performers. This useful collection of "tested tricks" runs into forty-six well-printed, illustrated pages, and is bound in soft boards. We should expect it to have an excellent sale, and to give genuine satisfaction.

CONTENTS

• Foreword by Sid Lorraine

• CHAPTER I CLOSE-UP MAGIC

• Climax Cup and Ball

• Dollar in Orange

• Flash Finish

• Cigarette Surprise

• Surprise Suggestions

• Dollar Deception

• Ever-Ready Lighter

• Two on a Match

• Impromptu Changing Bag

• The Traveling Cigarettes

• Thimble Catch

• Four Thimble Vanish

• Dixie Cup Betcha

• CHAPTER II MENTAL MAGIC

• Character Cards

• Master Key

• Which Lock

• Design Projection

• CHAPTER III CARD MAGIC

• Tear the Cards

• Etho Vanishing Card Case

• Card from Pocket

• The Click Locator

• Secret Servante

• CHAPTER IV SILK MAGIC

• Lightning Production

• The Go-between Silk

• A Go-between Routine

• Silk Through Body

• Burning a Borrowed Handkerchief

• CHAPTER V VARIETY MAGIC

• The Rambling Ribbons

• The Cup Vanishes

• Candle Conjuring

• Glove to Flowers

• Rope Through Neck

• The X04 Rope Trick

• Conclusion

• About the Authors

If you could add just one book to your library this month, here it is. But don't take our word for it. Here's what the magic fraternity had to say about this excellent book:

"A dandy collection, really worthwhile." - Mel Stover

"An excellent collection of magic that you will read, enjoy, and perform. No lengthy explanations, easy to understand instructions and we doubt whether you'll ever find as much material that you'll be eager to add to your magical offering as you'll find between the pages of 'Magic at Your Fingertips.' Good, practical magic with plenty of novel and up-to-date touches." - Sid Lorraine

"Full of good ideas." - Wilfrid Jonson

"To the inveterate card worker, we have no doubt the 'Click Locator' (in Chapter 3) will set them working, for here is a key card which is neither long, short, thick nor wide, in fact, its very presence in the pack is quite indetectable, and yet the performer can locate the key card instantly." - Eric C. Lewis and E. G. Brown