Cards to Use in Magic Tricks

Magic is an art of illusion, a practice in deception, a training in trickery. People have been entertaining, deceiving, or swindling crowds throughout history with feats of prestidigitation, decorated with salesmanship, dramatic effect, confidence, and charisma.

It is generally accepted today that there is nothing supernatural about magic; in essence, a magician is skillfully conjuring the appearance of true magic through sleight of hand, misdirection, and cunning. This is why many magicians call themselves "illusionists," embracing the idea that the audience enjoys the trick because they do not know how such an amazing feat could have been performed by natural means. Magic tricks are not only great for stage and street performance but are also well suited for entertainment at parties or as ice breakers at small gatherings.

Card tricks are among some of the most popular and infamous illusions used by magicians. In this free online video series learn from expert magician Brandon Nowasky as he teaches magic tricks, fundamentals, and techniques such as the two detectives, trick break, glide technique, the rising card, envelope prediction, the double lift, and how to control a card for a trick.

"Hi! I am Brandon Nowasky. I am here on behalf of Expert Village.com and I am going to show you some of the fundamentals of card tricks. In this clip, we are going to start off with the type of cards that you need to use. There are many different types of cards, different brands that you probably will know. The two that I prefer are Bicycle and B-cards; this has to do with the finish of the cards. Bicycle and B-cards have an air-cushioned finish; what that does is it allows the cards to move smoother through your hands, allows you to do fans, spring the cards, all these little flourishes that we are going to get to later on. Now other brands of cards, cheaper brands of cards will have, plastic coated cards they clump up; it is a lot harder to use, and you are not going to be able to be as smooth with those cards. Like I said before you want to use Bicycle brand or B-brand cards for the air cushion finish. In the next clip, we will go over some of the fundamental techniques of card tricks."