I'm looking for something from beginners to advance card techniques of some sort. Books I have read, are either difficult to understand or does not provide enough information to perform the sleight or trick. And if possible, can you provide a website, preferably some place in the USA. We dont have any magic shops except for one here. However, that shop doesn't provide any videos or books. No one there can provide a demo for any of the tricks they sell except for the manager. Thanks for all the help.

Check out some of the posts right below this one. Also the search feature for the forum works well for finding out about old threads. It's great to find them and read them!

Good luck...

Pick up Royal Road to Card Magic. That you can find in any bookstore or order it online at any of the online stores. It reads a little dry, but it's got some great stuff in it, and as many people will tell you, it's a good place to start.

The Royal Road is good but it can be difficult to undrstand depending on your personal learning style.

I like to intersperse between Royal Road and Daryl's Encyclopedia of Card Slights (DVD). They go well together and it allows you to see what you read about.

Card College has also been reccomended to me but I have yet to purchase it.

As for sites to buy these there are a few:

http://www.daytonamagic.com
http://www.penguinmagic.com (Free Shipping)

If you go with Daryl's Encyclopedia be sure to get the DVD and not the Video. DVD's provide you with a better ability to rewind and slow down the handaling so you get a better grasp (no pun intended) on the handling.

-Psuedotheo

I recommend the Card College series. They give a good range tricks as well (I find the ones in the Royal Road a bit dated now).

All of the recommendations above are good.

The 1st books I bought was:

1. The Magic Book --- Harry Lorayne
2. Now You See It Now You Don't --- Bill Tar
has good illustrations
3. Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic --- Mark Wilson
has good illustrations

If you are patient one can find them all on eBay for less than $30.00.

I still refer to these often.

Russ

I guess I'll be getting Daryl's Encyclopedia of Card Sleights DVD box set, The Royal Road to Card Magic, Card College, and if possible, Jeff McBride, The Art of Card Manipulation Vol. 1 to 3. Is his 3 vol. dvd set any good?

And what about Floating Rose by Kevin James -Video, it doesn't have anything to do with cards, but it sounds very interesting.

Thanks.

The Floating Rose video is excelent.

I would think about picking up one or two of Daryl's Revelations too. The old saying goes that if you have many ways to find a card but only one way to reveal it you have one card trick, but, if you have one way to find a card and many ways to reveal it you have many card tricks.

Jeff McBride's video series, The Art of Card Manipulation 1- 3 is very good. Everyone I know swears by the Card College books. I started out with Royal Road to card magic. There was no Card College back then. You can't go wrong if you get both.

Koji, you can't go wrong with those selections. That material would be a tremendous investment that will pay off for you. McBride's DVD's are incredible. Volumes 2 and 3 are very advanced, but still get them if you are lucky enough to have the extra cash. They are inspirational! I'm going to get Daryl's Revelations this week myself.

Daryl's Encyclopedia is awesome, but if you want to learn some great classic EFFECTS, check out the Easy to Master Card Miracles series, by Michael Ammar and LL Publishing. While Daryl does teach some great effects, his series is mostly a lesson on essential sleights. By the way, I also think it is an essential series. Ammar's series is devoted to classic effects, and the teaching is great.

You might want to consider getting Expert Card Techniques from Huggard as well. (oh yes, join http://www.thelearnedpig.com.pa they have a lot of magic books that are past the copyright time limit and are now free, but you do need to take a test so read the royal road first)

Good Luck!

Card College is how I got in.

Used book store is where I found it for cheap.

Daryl's card sleights DVD was a good tip from someone on this thread. I think I'll get that next so that I can visually see what it's supposed to look like!

The entire card college series can get pretty advanced. They also have an ebook version in which robert giobi(sp?) performs some of the tricks and sleights. Good Luck!

Youre first book should definitaly be RRTCM because it teaches the basic sleights which every beginner needs! I have been doing magic for about six months and have now finished that and am progressing quickly mainly due to this book giving me a solid start!

I am definately a fan of RRTCM. Now You See It Now You Don't really is an excellent book and gives you a wide range of effects you can learn. Very easy to understand.

I agree and second the advice given for Daryls Encyclopedia of Card Sleights its a great place to start and will give you a good knoweledge of material to base off of

If you are getting daryl's encyclopedia collection, then I would suggest going with the Ammar videos instead of rrtcm and card college. Daryl will teach all the info in card college minus the tricks, but Ammar will teach more tricks. It would still be nice to have it all, but realistically daryl covers all the basics that card college and royal road would, plus 100. After the daryl dvd's you will just have a few select tricks and history that could be summed up in one book, rather the 200 dollar collection of books.
I suggest picking from:
-Daryls encyclopedia or,
-card college and RRtCM

Then pick up some DVDs like Ammars Easy to master series.

The other thing to consider is how well you learn material and how you want to learn it.
Daryls dvd's aren't' drawn out to be a how to guide. THe first DVD teaches the very basics then kinda says here is the rest of everything on the other 7. while card is set up to advance you with every volume puchased.
I would start first by just getting RRtCM to find out if this is truly something you want to do before spending the 2-300 dollars on books and dvds.

The reason I say just from the dvd's and the books is because you may get everything you want from one and not use the others at all. It will save you some money.

Later if you feel there is more you don't know and would like to ask if the latter would be a could purchase at your level.

Getting both would be like getting someone to teach you to ride a bike and then going out to find someone to teach you how to ride a bike.

Overall I would recommend the daryl dvds and then an Ammar dvd. Daryl's collection is something new and old alike can refer to. There is almost too much info, but like previously stated GET THE DVD. Because it is sleights there will be like 50 10 second moves. A video will get destroyed with all the fast forwarding and rewinding you will do.

If I new about Daryl's DVD when I started things would be a lot different right now.
late.

the art of card manipulation is awesome. it is more flourishes and really short tricks, but this would come after the first two suggestions I made. YOu can do an entire perfomance based on the info in each volume of this collection, but it doesn't teach basics it teaches theatrical flair. Essentially how to make the stuff you know look better. eg in instead of saying is this your card (taking from the top of the deck) you make the card appear from the air.
B)

Go with the Card College series, Ammars Easy to master series, Daryl's Encyclopedia of Card Sleights, The Royal Road to Card Magic, and Expert Card Techniques.

Also if youre looking for a good DVD try Kauffmans Basic Card Techniques, I have it and its very easy to follow as it shows you the sleight from various different angles and he also does the sleight many times at different paces!