138 Classic Effects

Dear friend,

If you asked any magician—whether a seasoned professional, top-class children’s magician or a member of the magic circle—THIS question…

“Where are the REAL secrets?”

They would most likely give you THIS answer…

They're in the books.

We couldn't agree more. In fact, two years ago this very week we launched our ‘classic magic book collection’ project where you could pick up 368 of these books.

That project sold in the thousands—but ever since we created it we’ve been acutely aware of one big problem….

For a lot of people these books are difficult to read, and so bulky it’s hard to find the really good stuff.

Our friend Danny Goldsmith (considered by many the world’s best coin magician) recently lamented to us that he learns better from video and struggles with classics such as Bobo—that would otherwise undoubtedly hold so much power for him.

That among many other reasons is why we’ve created this project.

This project is a VIDEO collection of 138 of the BEST tricks from our library of 368 classic magic books.

First, we spent hours upon hours pouring over these books, sifting through the material, and finding the very best ‘hidden gems’. 

And there were a LOT of them.

In fact, while creating this project we quite literally found the method for one the best selling magic tricks of 2023 in a single throwaway paragraph written by Theodore Annemann.

(this is no exaggeration, check out trick 39 of this project upon purchase to see the proof!)

Next, we spent nearly two weeks practically living in our studio, filming high quality videos going over each of these tricks and making them as EASY to understand as possible.

Our goal was to do ALL the hard work for you.

We’ve taken these tricks, added our own modernizations, touches, alternate handlings and most importantly brought them into the modern age in the form of video.

We’ve also made sure the original excerpts are right below the video because reading and watching can create an even better experience!

This was a mammoth task.

This project has taken 2 years to be fully realized.

As Black Friday and ‘crunch time’ approached, we even had to carve out 2 weeks of our schedule to create a ‘magic bootcamp’ where we did nothing but read, film, edit, learn and produce.

(spending regular 12, 13 and even 20 hour days immersed in this stuff)

The result?

Imagine knowing more about magic than you ever have.

Imagine being able to sit down with magicians such as Hugard, Annemann, Vernon, Erdnase, Cardini, Hunter and others, knowing you could have kept up with them.

(and perhaps show them a few things of your own!)

That’s how we felt at the ‘peak’ of this project, while we were so immersed in their work. It’s a feeling we tried to capture in the product.

This project is about reaching into the past and bringing the best of that era of magic into the modern day.

We’ve talked to magic circle members, top magicians and clients about it for a while now.

But we’re finally sharing it with you…

So let’s get into the ‘goodies’.

Here’s just a few of the 138 effects you will learn in this project...

#115: The spectator picks a book, they then choose any two numbers in their mind by rolling imaginary dice. WITHOUT REVEALING THEM to you, they use the first two numbers to find a page and a word on that page. Without looking at the book, without asking them to reveal their number, you tell them the word on the page. This is truly as clean as it sounds

(An original method inspired by an Annemann routine)

#73: The spectator picks any card from a borrowed deck, you take back the deck placing it on the floor, the spectator then gives the deck a few cuts - you KICK the deck and reveal the chosen card.

#80: Your spectator chooses a card that gets shuffled into the deck. Another spectator names a number from 1 to 20. You cut a packet of cards off the top of the deck.

The cards are counted and it turns out you cut exactly the desired amount! But even better, the card now on top of the deck, below the cards cut…is the chosen card!

(this is a variation on an effect found in one of Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue's less well-known books. It uses a very clever Dani DaOrtiz subtlety!)

#2: A stunning piece of mentalism with cards that Nate Leipzig called “one of the most puzzling of all impromptu feats with cards.”

(extremely simple method but most magicians will assume some kind of complex stack work or mathematics)

#4: Any two cards are chosen from a deck, the deck is shuffled, you wrap the deck in newspaper and pull out two knives. The spectators stab the deck in two separate locations, they both stab at the location of their chosen cards.

(an effect from Dr. Jacob Daley)

#82: The spectator picks any card and you put it in your pocket, it is on full display the entire trick. They then name any card, very slowly you reach into your pocket this turns out to be the named card.

#25: You leave the room. The spectator cuts the deck, looks at their card, and replaces it. Then THEY shuffle the deck. When you come back in, you can instantly find the card.

#37: You ask spectators to choose cards one at a time. Each time, your partner writes a message for the spectator BEFORE they choose their card. When the messages are opened, they perfectly match the chosen cards!

(and no, the method isn't just forcing cards each time!)

In this video, we present a modernized version of an Al Baker classic where your partner sends text messages with the predicted cards to your spectator's phone!

#32: This was one of legendary English magician David Devant’s favorite card tricks. Today you’ll see David Blaine perform it for celebrities and it’s still just as good.

#58: You write a prediction. They freely choose any card. You immediately turn over the prediction to show that you correctly guessed the card. There’s zero delay between the card being chosen and the prediction being turned over.

(This is a trick that Jean Hugard said was the best thing he’d seen in ‘moons’.)

#119: A method to perform the classic 'Weighing the Cards' routine WITHOUT needing to memorize a stack! Yet we still get it to hit every time...

#63: The spectator chooses a card and it is lost in the deck. A second spectator chooses a card, which is placed face-up on top of the deck. The first spectator takes the face-up card and places it anywhere in the deck—all behind their back. When the cards are spread, the face-up card is found next to their card! Everything ends clean.

#64: You write a prediction. They insert a card somewhere in the deck and leave it sticking out. You cut the cards where their card is inserted and reveal the card you predicted on the face of the deck.

(This is a Vernon effect that we nearly gave up on because we couldn’t get it to work—but we finally hit a breakthrough and fell in love with it)

#98: A Miser’s Dream routine from Cardini that was so practical we were able to learn it in just an hour (and we are NOT coin magicians)

#72: One of the simplest but most direct ‘spelling’ tricks we’ve ever seen—straight from the mind of Jean Hugard.

#95: You drop one deck into an ordinary box that a spectator shakes to mix the cards. A spectator cuts another deck and turns over the top card. You immediately plunge your hand into the box and produce the requested card. No duplicate cards, no palming, and everything ends examinable.

(This is a trick by Thurston that first appeared in a kids book. We took it and added some touches that turned it into a real ‘magician fooler’.)

#96, 99, 100, 101: Four of the best book tests we’ve ever seen. Each one gets more and more clean.

We think this page contains many of the BEST effects in magic.

But we aren’t just teaching effects.

We tried to pick effects that covered as WIDE a range of magic techniques as possible, including…

* Forces
* Palming
* Misdirection, spatial and temporal
* Naturalness
* Tension and relaxation
* Switches and changes
* False counts
* Passes
* Stack work
* Second dealing and other false deals
* Memory techniques
* Fishing
* Proper motivation
* Overhand shuffle controls
* Controls
* Nail writing
* The one ahead principle
* Psychological ‘convincers’
* Scripting
* Productions
* Vanishes
* Double lifts
* Dual reality
* Color changes
* Equivoque
* False shuffles
* Psychological forces
* Arming
* Coin sleights
* Glimpses
* Key cards
* Stripper deck and other gimmicked decks
* Gimmicked cards
* Short cards
* Breather crimps
* Punched cards

These are just the ideas that come to mind right now—and there’s so much more waiting to be unpacked.

From analyzing advice from Slydini on how to move our body for maximum misdirection while performing a top change to how you can use time and space to ‘erase’ the memory of card controls—we wanted this to be a masterclass in not just tricks, but magic itself.

If you’re new to magic, this product contains both all the tricks you could ask for AND training on all the sleights and techniques required to perform them.

If you’re an experienced magician, you’ll appreciate the fresh subtleties and variations we’ve found that turn some of these classics on their head.

(many of the ideas in here are ‘cutting edge’ and combine old routines with new principles and props in a way you’ve never seen before)

There’s truly something in this project for every magician.

Plus we're introducing what we think we might be the most exciting addition to this project! 

The Living Legends FREE Bonus

We're currently working with the greatest living magicians we know to add their take to some of the best classic tricks ever created. 

Here's just one example of what that looks like...

We recently sat down with our friend and lifelong performer Joel Dickinson and asked him to share his thoughts on one of the routines in this collection. 

Joel decided to share his modified handling of the 'Lightning Calculator', and the result looks like this...

You ask your spectator to select a card. Next, you have them select a number from 1-52. The moment they name their number aloud, you cut the deck and place the packet on the table.

You count the cards in the packet one at a time to show that the number of cards you cut perfectly matches the number they called out. This is the first reveal, and it's an incredible display of skill.

But things get REALLY crazy when you turn over the card left on top of the deck to show that it's the card they selected!

This effect is a lovely combination of the 'Card at Any Number' plot with the 'Weighing the Cards' plot, and we were delighted by the changes Joel made to the handling to create the above effect.

The original method for this effect, as taught in the project, used a gimmicked deck. But in this recording, Joel shows you how to perform the above effect completely impromptu (and even with a borrowed deck!)

During the recording, Joel and Benji also discussed:

- A genius way to use dice to 'guide' the audience to a number you want

- How asking two spectators to choose numbers lets you control the outcome far more than asking one spectator (but feels just as fair)

- Ideas on how you might end this routine by showing the entire deck blank (apart from the selected card)

- How to reframe your magic to alter your spectator's memory of events

This is just one of the free bonuses we're adding to this project, bringing together the greatest ideas of the past century with the contemparious takes of our living magic legends. 

Other magicians who have contributed to this project include...

- Danny Goldsmith

- More coming! (including Biz and Jeff Copeland)

Free bonus aside, here's what our clients and top magicians had to say about our project...

"I was given access to this Mammoth project early, and it's the real deal. I was discovering effects I had never even seen. The project will take any serious magician from beginner to pro, and if you are a pro already, I promise you will learn things you haven't before." - Andrew Frost

"An incredible project! One of my favorites of the collection is #98, a Miser’s Dream by Cardini ... This routine was in Bobo all along, but this is the first time I’ve seen it and I’m so glad they made it available in this way. It's incredibly deceptive." - Danny Goldsmith

"Incredible product idea. Very very nice! I really like it!" - Steven Bridges

"The focused intent of the creators is obvious. Learning these effects in an audio-visual way is manifold value." - Michael Franznick

"The best deal in magic." - Zee J. Yan

"Thank you for this amazing package! My husband got it for me for Christmas, and it's going to be so hard to wait!" - Julie John

"Thanks for distilling so much quality work into accessible content for the modern workers." - Erich

"This is amazing! So much from so many legends!" - Dave Montes

"Such strong material here! I'll be a while mining all the gold from this project. If you want something to sink your teeth into, this is it!" - Arlen Card

"This seems like the most amazing piece of work you have. The amount of time and effort that went into this is admirable. I would not have learned this tricks from books, but since you did that hard work and showed performances, it made learning so much easier!" - Rick Gross

"I have studied magic for a long time by reading the old books. Whilst there are amazing gems in old books there is a lot of reading that you might discard or forget about. Here someone has done all the hard work for you and brought to life these effects, making it quick and easy to see how it might work in your repetoire." - Richard Newton

"Just bought this and WOW!!!! Talk about value. I started out in magic learning from books and what I love the most about the tricks I learned from books is that people today are mostly doing the same tricks because they all learned them from videos. Yes it might be easier, but is it better? I love that these guys work so hard to find the greatest possible value to share with us. If they said send us 20 bucks and we'll send you a great trick i trust them so much I would send the money knowing, without a doubt, I would get a great trick." - Tony Kent

"Brilliant stack of information here. So much to take away and incorporate into your routines. A literal treasure trove!" - Will Mack

"Great collection! Makes one go back through your "old stuff". Old wine in new bottles." - Gary Poleynard

"The huge amount of work that must have been put into this project demands respect, and appreciation. As understand it this project is still being worked on, to make it even better. So with that in mind it is well worth purchasing." - Huw Thomas

"Brilliant stack of information here. So much to take away and incorporate into your routines. A literal treasure trove!" - Will Mack

And please don't worry if this all feels a little overwhelming because inside the project we've highlighted 7 of our favorite effects for you to get started with!

Now please understand, you will undoubtedly probably know a few of the tricks in this project.

(you might still find our modern touches instructive though!)

HOWEVER, we’re so confident that, like us, you will unearth some incredible century-held secret that absolutely blows you away, we're willing to make a pretty big promise.

If you don’t—we WANT to give you your money back.

Yup, you can go through every single video, learn every single trick, and if you’re not blown away by some principle in this project, we BEG you to let us refund you.

This project changed our magic—and it might just change yours.

As for the price?

Considering the amount of work that went into this project, we genuinely wanted to sell this for a very high amount.

See, most effects of this quality production and material sell for a minimum of £10 at most magic retailers. 

If you’ve ever bought magic online, you know this is true.

If we were to release each of these effects individually, that would add up to a staggering £1380 in cost. 

(and that’s just the effects—not to mention all the other training this material includes.)

Now, we’re not asking anyone to pay us quite that much.

In fact, we wanted to make this project available at a price that is quite literally just a fraction of what it could add up to.

In the end, we settled on just £110.

That's less than a TENTH of the £1380 of value in this project, and just £0.76 per effect!

So there it is—for just £110 you can have full access to a tool that will allow you to unearth secrets and learn powerful magic that has been hidden for hundreds of years.

You will skip the hours of trawling through unusable magic that we had to do and jump straight to the finish line with 138 tailor-picked, meticulously taught incredible effects.

30+ hours of world-class magic.

Yours for just £110!

Don’t hesitate, buy now…