"Outs", Precautions, and Challenges

For Ambitious Card Workers

By Charles H. Hopkins

One of the best card books ever written! If you perform card magic and have not studied this book, your education is incomplete. Outs, Precautions, and Challenges is the authoritative book on what to do when a trick goes wrong! Also thoroughly explored are ways to handle challenges posed by spectators who insist on shuffling the deck at an inopportune time or who want to put their chosen card back into the pack somewhere other than where the magician planned. Comprehensive and well written. Worthy of a spot in any card man's library.

Contents Include:

• Preface by Charles H. Hopkins
• Introduction
• When Asked to Do the Impossible
• School Yourself for All Emergencies
• Experience Still the Best Teacher

Part I Outs
Chapter 1 Facing the Music

• Whose Fault When Things Go Wrong?
• The Psychology of Failure
• Use of Sucker Gag Technique

Chapter 2 Organizing for Victory

• Secret and Open Outs
• When Error is Still Under Cover
• Card Correctly Identified but Slips Out of Control
• Identification Correct, but Placement for Climax is Wrong
• When Error Maybe Visible
•  Incorrect Identification of Selected Card
•  Card Lost Before Identification
• The Selector Forgets What His Card Was
• Either You Know You Are Wrong - Or Else...

Chapter 3 Information-Getting Subtleties

• This Time You MUST Be Right
• Attitudes That Get Co-Operation
• When They Refuse to Tell
• For the Extreme Hold Out
• Use a Thumb Writer
• Impression Methods
• Pencil Reading
• Friendly Mirrors
• To Meet an Absolute Refusal to Tell

Chapter 4 Some Handy Sleights

• Old Ideas Brought Up to Date; Also a Few New Ones
• The Top Peek
• Fan Crimp
•  The Deck Crimp
• The Crimp as a Locator
• Fan Jog
• The Quarter-Bridge
• Gambler's Bridge
• The Change Throw
•  Other Useful Standard Sleights

Chapter 5 Outs To the Rescue

• Fit the Weapon to the Needs
• Getting Down to Brass Tacks...And The Selected Card
• Quick Switches and Other Fast Closers
•  Just a Gag
• Out-In-The-Open Changes
• Forced Replacement of the Wrong Card
• Using Locators for Outs
• 39 Methods for Counting and Spelling Effects
• The Pilot Card
• New Start from Wrong Turn-up
• The 220 Count as an Out
• Outs Productions from Pockets and Other Places
• n Performer's Pocket
• Pocket Index
• Card in Wallet
•  Use of Spectator for Outs
• The Eveready Life-Saver
• Apparatus Alibis
• When Force is Missed
• First Aid for Feeble Memories
• Confusion As to Suits and Values
• Spectator's Mind a Complete Blank

Part II Challenges

 Chapter 6 Taking On All Comers

• Outs Compared with Challenges
• A Word of Caution

Chapter 7 Before Card Gets Lost in Shuffle

• Try to Keep as Much Control as Possible
• Controlled Returns
• Use of Locators
• The Gimmicked Cut
•  The Cut Break
• Estimating the Cut
• The Cut Force
• Astonishing Simplicity
• Blindman's Bluff
• The 220 Count
•  Pre-Arrangements

Chapter 8 When They Give You the Works

• How Plenty of Rein Trips Them
• Look for Informal Readers
• Scrapes and Nicks
•  Daub
• The Magician's Little Helpers
• Secret Reflectors
• Wide and Narrow Decks
• The Indexed Pocket Deck Again

Chapter 9 Bordering On the Mental

• When Information-Getting Becomes Ticklish
• They Commit Themselves In Writing
• Pencil Reading
• Billet Switching
• Billet Index
•  Pad Impressions
• Trick Notebooks
•  A Case of Hambuggery
• A Prophet In His Own Land
• Thumb Writers
• Special Decks on Taps
•  Brain Wave Deck
• New Era Instanto Deck

Chapter 10 Trickery Conquers All

• What Makes Audiences Get That Way
• Circumstances That Lead Up to Challenges
• Specific Handling of Various Situations
• The Heckler...Ding Bust His Buttons!
• For the Intelligent Analyst Type
• rouble Arising Out of Pure Friendship
• More to Come?...Well, Maybe!

Details: Outs, Precautions, and Challenges, By Charles H. Hopkins

 79 pages, softcover, saddle-stitched, size 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches. ©1940.

 Illustrations by Walter S. Fogg.