🃏🌴 Packet Trick Paradise #1: Gone Catfishing

Learn a fun, four-card packet trick with a suprise comedy ending.

Difficulty: ⭐ (Easy)
Duration: ⏱️⏱️ (3-5 minutes)
Setup Time: 🎯 (Minimal)

Welcome to Packet Trick Paradise, a regular column about card tricks using a small group of playing cards.

Magicians have been performing magic with small packets of cards since the time of Hofzinser. However, it wasn’t until the packet trick craze of the early 1970s that this genre of magic became a popular sub-genre of card magic. The innovative ideas of Larry West, Nick Trost, Phil Goldstein (Max Maven) and Magic Ronnay, among others, ushered in a “golden age” of packet trick magic that lasted well into the 1980s.

Some of my favourite packet tricks include Dai Vernon’s “Twisting the Aces”, “The Last Trick of Dr. Jacob Daley”, and “The Four Card Trick” by Alex Elmsley. The latter, first published in 1959, is one of the most important historical packet tricks because it introduced the Ghost Count, also known as the Elmsley Count, to the magical fraternity. The Elmsley Count is the basis of many modern packet tricks.