Does anyone know anthin more about this man? Also, does anyone know fable about his famous four ace production out of a borowed shuffled deck?

Get his autobiography The Odds Against Me or the other book The Amazing World of John Scarne.

I beleive he was even referenced by name in one of the James Bond novels by Ian Flemming as the person who taught 007 how to handle cards.

Thanks for the fact!

Other trivia on Scarne:

Movie: "STING"
Magician/actor: Paul Newman/John Scarne
Effect: Paul Newman performs some nice card flourishes. Actually
performed by the great hands of the late John Scarne and
filmed to look like Newman.
Scene: On the train before the poker game
Info provided by sg@cbnewsh.att.com

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During World War II, helped prevent GIs from getting fleeced by crooked gamblers by educating them on card and dice hustling techniques.

Devised the blackjack shoe used today in casinos around the world.

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His last name is pronounced Skar-ney.

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In the novel "Goldfinger" Bond is studying the book: "Scarne on Cards", before exposing Auric Goldfinger as a cheat.

Bjørn

John Scarne grew up in Hoboken ,New Jersey and his real name was Scarneccia. The Odds Against Me a facinating story . Very enjoyable.

Scarne was one of my heros when was growing up

vinny

I know there are some of his routines scattered in different books (Stars of magic for instance), but did he ever publish his "heavy" stuff in book-form?
I have "Scarne on cardtricks" and the threecard monte-book, but the man was rumored to be a Great Card Man...

Bjørn

Karl Fulves has published a number of Scarne's heavy stuff in his publications.

Steve

Fulves published some of Scarne things but as for heavy stuff.....I think most of it went with Scarne!

Too bad...

But I'll have to browse thru my Pallbearers and Epilogue-books again one of these days, I see.

Bjørn

I have two books by this great magician Scarne on magic tricks and Scarne on card tricks and they are both excellent books

Scarne was Italian-American and felt that the stereotype of mobsters being Italian was nothing short of insulting to the Italian-American community. He wrote a book debunking the myth of the existance of the Mafia. Sorry - I forget the title.

Posted: Mar 23, 2005 7:40pm
Oops. I didn't mean to leave all that blank space at the end of that last post. Still learning how to use these new-fangled contraptions.

Yes, but if you read the intros to both books, they cleary state that they do not require any sleight of hand or skill, for that matter. The advantage is that they free your resources, so you can concentrate on presentation. But it is better if you can manage to do some "work." Then you can concentrate on doing something your audience is less likely to be able to do, themselves.

They are about the same level of book as the Blackstone 200/200 more/400 tricks you can do and other similar books.

While Scarne was a card great, there are two of his tricks (oops, effects) in Stars of Magic that I do regularly and think are wonderful, both in effect and aesthetic. One is his three ball routine; the other is the silver/copper transposition (I work that one with a silver dollar and a giant penny--shockingly visual, plus total surprise since no one has ever seen a giant penny. Moreover, an English penny is. . .well, simply foreign).

Back in the mid-60's I saw John Scarne on one of those talk shows--Mike Douglas or Merve Griffin, perhaps. I've no idea what specific effects he was doing, but he worked with cards and I can still recall being utterly overwhelmned by him. It was a great magic highlight for me--even if it was on TV and not in person.