The S.A.M. Match

Apologies for my recent absence from the blog but thanks to Jay Hunter and others for keeping the site fresh. I'm back with an interesting posting that falls in the general category of scaling cards although I'm certain that anyone who obtained a set of these cards would not scale them away into the audience. I speak of a special packet trick issued as a gift from Dal Sanders and his wife during his 2014 S.A.M. presidency. The set is shown below.

Shown are extremely well crafted playing cards featuring some of the more famous leaders of the S.A.M. as well as some well-known magicians. Featured are: Harry Kellar, Harry Houdini, Harlan Tarbell, Howard Thurston, Jay Marshall, and David Copperfield. The recipient gets a set in red and matching set in blue. The reverse side features the S.A.M. logo in the middle.

The packets allow the owner to do a trick based on Larry Becker's "Will The Cards Match?" from the award wining book Stunners Plus first published in 1992. Two spectators are given the packets of cards (one red - one blue) and then they will move cards from the top of their stack to the bottom, one for each letter in the sentence, "Great magicians Are in SAM." The order of that movement will be at the pleasure of audience members.

The effect starts with the performer going through the face up cards mentioning who each person is and their association with the SAM. On the membership cards that year (above) was the sentence "Great magicians are in SAM." Audience members are asked to decide which color card (or cards) will be moved from the top to the bottom of the stack, They can decide one red, one blue, two reds, one blue, or whatever alternating colors they wish. After the act of moving the cards is completed the top face down cards of each pile are turned over and they match. The next in line don't, nor do the bottom cards.

Once again the sentence is spelled and cards moved in any order. Again the top cards match. This continues until the last cards match. The effect involves a stack and is self-working. While clearly not scaling cards per se, I like them anyway and I've added them to the collection.