I suppose once you’re finished here you’re going to find everyone who’s published an Ambitious Card Routine without making a credit to Jean Nicholas Ponsin, and give them similar flack? That would be no less ridiculous than what you’re doing here. Incidentally, you won’t find a reference for that even in Royal Road to Card Magic — perhaps because they understood the concept of ideas becoming ubiquitous over time. All the same, perhaps you should conduct a seance to get in touch with Hugard and Braue and give them a stern talking to about that.

As for the rest… What can I say? Trying to pick a fight with me over what part of the world I come from? It’s amusing that you’d accuse me of being young given the immaturity of that line of thought.

You’ve worn out your welcome on this site. Bye bye.

You know. Jerry Sadowitz is right, you guys over that side of the pond are all the same…I don’t know how old you are but I imagine your quite young and if your not you should be ashamed of yourself as I have to say it’s blooming typical….of you guys over there, why don’t you take more tricks from the archives and substitute a move here and there and call them something else….and while your at it why don’t you get a book published of your own versions of tricks that are exactly the same as other tricks invented by other people but with just a move changed here and there…who knows maybe you will make your fortune..

In fact I could go down to my library of about 400 books and try that….but I won’t because I seem to have a bit more respect for archived magic than you seem to have. do what you like with what I have said as I won’t back down from the fact that your version is too similar to Jean Hugards version to be something new…and as I have already done so with some of my magic friends, I will be pointing quite a few more of my magician friends in this direction to look at it for themselves and give me their opinions, but as I already said I’ve had a few emails back that agree with me on this one. Why don’t you do the same with some of your magic friends, and see what they think! The friends I have chosen to give me their opinion have either got an extensive working knowledge of RRTCM or are old enough to know of it and have studied it at some point…I hope the friends you choose have similar backgrounds in magic….so that the opinions you get back are at least relevant to the argument. But to be honest your boring me now as it’s clear to me no matter what I say you are going to wriggle out of crediting anyone for this and so I am wasting my time and energy even pursuing this, or replying to your feeble attempts at justifying yourself…as I said I like your variation but I unfortunately don’t like you at all…and as I said you should be ashamed of yourself…

Rapid Transit is a poorly-routined solution to the 2 card transposition plot, a class of effect that Hugard and Braue did not invent. Any proper 2 card transposition is going to need card switches, and the use of XIs to effect card switches is OLD. RT represents an overuse of the move, and involves bringing a card back to the deck in order to show it again, which makes no sense. It’s plain to anybody who reads the effect with a clear head that it’s meant to be a way for beginning magicians to do a 2 card transposition using minimal sleight-work and without having to do something as bold as the XVII. Their version is pretty obvious and frankly, weaker than it could be.

Hugard and Braue published a wonderful book that many beginning card magicians can learn from, but that book contains a bunch of material that isn’t of their own invention, and some routines that they credit to nobody, because they were in use by many magicians at the time before the book was even published. Give the book a proper read and you’ll find examples of that easily. If either of them were alive today they’d look at their version of the 2 card transposition plot and say it’s a fairly obvious idea. They’d also look at my own version of the 2 card transposition plot and say it too is a fairly obvious idea, and that’d be fair comment. They’re both pretty obvious approaches to dealing with the 2 card transposition plot.

Now, if they were alive today and if RRTCM weren’t in the public domain, I might consider asking their permission for the variation on “The Insidious Dr. Fu Liu Tu” that I published elsewhere on this blog, as it borrows heavily from a novel idea in the text — and because of that fact I made a specific credit for it. But the use of 3 XIs to pull off a 2 card transposition is hardly novel, nor is the use of 2 XIs and a VII. Frankly, they’re rather obvious applications of the moves, which is why I was surprised I didn’t see my version involving a VII out there before writing mine up. If I were to want to credit somebody for the trick, I’d have to figure out whoever it was that invented the first ever 2 card transposition and talk to them. Problem is, that person, whoever they are, is (a) unknown and (b) deader than Hugard and Braue.

In your insinuation that I am trying to wriggle my way out of anything, the suggestion seems to be that I’m somehow afraid to credit people. For that, I refer you to the other tricks written on this blog to see how they are credited. Start with “Magic Wand”.

The rest of your post, particularly the part where you suggest that I had read RT and turned around to rewrite it as my own trick, isn’t worth responding to, except to say this: In future, I’d take great care before accusing somebody of that.

Your variation is exactly the same as Rapid Transit (almost word for word, and I am not talking about the patter here, I mean the description of the trick) except at the beginning you put the first card in your pocket RT puts it on the table…in both versions the deck is in play the whole time…you use two XIs during the trick, up to the last reveal of the cards, so does RT, now the final reveal…the spectators card in RT is turned over and is seen to have changed to the one you should have, which is exactly the same as your version, now to reveal your card has changed, in RT because the original top card is on the table you have to do another XI, however in your version, because the original top card is in your pocket you do a VII which in my humble opinion makes it an improvement on the original but that’s all it is, an improvement on the original not a new trick with a new name, it’s a minor variation of Rapid Transit…regardless if as you say it does or doesn’t belong to Hugard and Braue, as the original idea belongs to someone and they should be given credit for thinking of the original idea, you didn’t even acknowledge that and are still trying to say your version is different, when it is obvious to anyone who cares to look at RT more closely that your ‘solution’ as you call it is the same…except for a minor move change…or as I am increasingly thinking the more you wriggle out of giving credit where it’s due…that you were counting on that fact…that nobody would check…too closely. In fact on further checking, Jean Hugard published More Manipulations Series No 1 in 1934 and shortly after that he published Series No 2, 3 and 4. In Series 2 Jean Hugard published a trick called Invisible Transit which is exactly the same as Rapid Transit from the RRTCM, so I think we can safely say this idea is Jean Hugards…don’t you think…

The cardinal sin you committed is as I said, you didn’t credit where it is due, you are even wriggling about crediting it now when it’s pointed out to you, when you said that you would…

As I said Andrew, your Variation is a good one…and it deserves praise for thinking of it, I wish I had thought of it…but what makes my blood boil is that too many people take other peoples effects, make minor adjustments give it a new name and claim it’s a new trick…If you had offered it as a variation of Rapid Transit I would have been singing your praises and not trying to get you to credit the originators of the idea that you seem to think YOU came up with…which you didn’t, you took RT, made a minor adjustment, renamed it and claimed it to be your ’solution’ to an ongoing problem.. your ’solution’ to the problem Andrew, is too similar to one already thought of to be another new ’solution’ as I already said your 2 Card Transpo is a variation of RT nothing more…

Just incase your not getting the reason why I am so uptight about this…Here is a scenario, suppose you had invented a trick and someone changed a small detail and them claimed it to be theirs, and even made lots of money from marketing this ‘new’ trick…wouldn’t you be at the very least annoyed…..well Jean Huggard whom we now know is the originator of this idea is not around to answer for himself..and there is lot of people who will remain nameless in this post, who have written whole books and made lots of money by doing just that…and I think its scandalous… So I am sorry Andrew, but your version is too close to the original to be a new trick, it’s a nice variation as I admit your variation is more versatile, but that’s all it is….and its called Rapid Transit…not 2 Card Transpostion…

Also you say Huggard and Braue committed themselves to the variation in print, theirs is not a variation of anything it’s a trick called Rapid Transit…there has been many variations of this effect since the RRTCM was published, and I admit I haven’t seen your variation in print before…but most have all credited Rapid Transit and claimed them to be variations of the original which you fail to do…

To be honest Andrew…what got me about your post was the fact that you named Rapid Transit in the introduction and then go on to describe your 2 Card Transpo…then say you have never seen it in print…when its quite obvious that you must have read the trick in RRTCM and copied the description from there and only changed one of the XIs for a VI and submitted it….. If a trick is so similar it can only be a variation of the original…

You could have quite easily said in your introduction, I have been looking at Rapid Transit from the RRTCM and come up with this variation which I believe is an improvement in the handling…and I would have thought…that’s nice, I wish I had thought of that…and I would not be so annoyed about this…as you would have been crediting where its due…which so many fail to do…I am just disappointed to be honest that, yet again archived magic is taken for granted…because the originators are not available to answer for themselves…

Here is another analogy…if you were writing an essay in an exam and you took someone else’s essay and copied it to your exam paper exactly as written, except you changed for example, the place names, and those changes did make the essay more interesting, but otherwise you copied the subject matter exactly to your sheet…wouldn’t that be called cheating or would you say, oh Jim’s essay was his solution to the question and this is mine…Do you honestly think your excuse would wash with the examiner…I don’t think so…All I will say is I like your version Andrew, but I don’t like the way you failed to credit the original…as the original belongs to someone and that someone deserves the praise for coming up with those original thoughts…end of…

So much for you saying you will credit where it’s due, now I think you should be getting what I am on about…

RT was an attempt by Hugard and Braue to do a simple 2 card transpo that didn’t require duplicates. It has significant disadvantages in the fact that a key move must be used three times (mine eliminates one of those moves, and in fact, you can switch in other means of switching cards if you want, such as the XVII or something else), and the deck remains in play throughout. That said, it did fulfill the basic requirement, that of doing a 2CT that involved no duplicates. I’ve not seen my particular solution to dealing with those problems before, which is why I offered this one. Like I said, it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody else came up with this approach to the plot before, but it’s an approach to the 2CT that really should be out there, especially when you consider that all the building blocks (the XI and the VII) are out there. Given the simplicity of the effect described above, I don’t really think it should belong to anybody, including myself. If you want to say it’s still Hugard and Braue’s, well, that’s your right, but I think they committed themselves to the version that’s in print, including its weaknesses.

Mr. Regal, if you’re reading this (yeah right), I’m totally not bitter. Congratulations on the success of your book. And, if a free copy were to mysteriously land at my doorstep for a review, well, it wouldn’t erase any bitterness, because of course there was no bitterness to begin with.

Thanks for the well wishes. It’s much appreciated.

Regarding Erdnase, I got close to finishing the essay and realized that while I felt I could comment without appearing ignorant on a good portion of the material, I’d need to talk to some smarter people on the subject before publishing it. Plus, the tone of it was still strongly affected by the argument over at the Cafe, and after a little time passed I decided that it needed to be rewritten from a more sober standpoint.

I’m probably going to need to get my hands on Ackerman’s set as well, just to see the stuff done. A few things in there are still a bit difficult for me to decipher — I read a passage, think “That’d never work”, I try it out, it looks lousy in my hands, and then I hear someone elsewhere say it’s very deceptive. I’m hesitant to write something off when people smarter than myself on the subject say it’s good, so I figure Ackerman’s the guy.

At least, until the Smiling Mule decides to start sharing stuff with the world again.

Regarding the Erdnase poll, I’m holding my vote until I’ve received both the new Vernon book and the Ackerman DVD set. While I know you’re busy you did mention sometime ago about posting your thoughts on studying Erdnase which I am anxious to read.

All the best with your new venture and I will ensure this site has a link on my blog plus will feature the site on one of my posts in the next week.

Regards,
Tony