Stone Cold Color Change

Effect:
Here is an ancient effect revisited.  One card changes to another by merely passing a fan of cards over it.

Performance:
In the left hand, hold the deck face up in the dealer’s grip.  With your right thumb, riffle up to about the half way point.  Up jog the upper portion of the deck about an inch and a half (see fig 1). Here comes the weird part.  Without moving your left hand, place your right fingers on top of the up jogged portion, and place your right thumb underneath the up jogged portion (see fig 2).

Figure 1Figure 2

Now that you are gripping the up jogged portion, pick it up, and do a one handed fan.  As you do the fan, it will be natural to turn your right hand so that the fan will be face down (see fig 3). Now for a split second, the fan will be covering the face of the left hand packet.  As it is covering the packet, the right little finger is going to steal the card that is against the left palm as follows:

Slide your right little finger behind the left hand packet allowing the palm side of your right little finger to touch the back of the card nearest your left palm (this card is actually the top card of the deck). At the same time, your right ring finger knuckle will be resting on the face card of the left hand packet (see fig 4). Note that in figure 4, the left hand has been removed for clarity’s sake.

Figure 3Figure 4

Press the little finger against the top card as your whole right hand moves downward with the fan.  This will cause the top card to slide off of the left hand packet and be clipped between your extended right little finger and your bent right ring finger (see fig 5). The fan conceals this extra card.  Now draw attention to the card at the face of the left hand packet.  Bring the fan up again to cover the left hand packet.  As you do so, slide the extra card onto the face of the left hand packet (see fig 6).

Figure 5Figure 6

As you slowly move the fan down with a wiping motion, it will appear as if the card at the face of the deck changes (see fig 7).  This is a very visual piece of magic.  Make sure you give it a shot.

Figure 7

Notes:
This effect has very tricky angles.  Watch the right side of the fan when you are concealing the extra card.  To avoid people seeing the hidden card, apply pressure on the back of the fan with your right thumb.
The pressure is applied downward and to the right (see fig 8).

Figure 8

This will cause the fan to be wider and almost a full semi-circle.  This should be enough to cover the stolen card.  Just practice with a friend, and have him watch your angles.  But don’t let that scare you off, because this effect freaks people out; it’s worth the time and effort to get this one. One final note is that this handling of the cards was sort of stumbled on while I was messing around with Ed Marlo’s Sunrise Production as it was written up in “Early Marlo.”

Finally, Wesley James pointed out that my color change, Stone Cold Color Change is similar to other moves in the past. Here’s what he had to say about this move:

While not identical, your Stone Cold Color Change has roots in a number of other techniques, which I feel should be referenced.

… Harry Lorayne has a similar change in which the card is stolen from the face of the left hand packet. Martin Gardner has a similar change, The Wink Change (Pallbearer’s Review, as I recall), wherein the fan serves only as a screen.

The grip you assume on the left hand packet is identical to that used in the steal of the packet in the widely known Chavez Vanish sequence (The Chavez Course in Magic).

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