Encode entire deck with just a Bic pen or any pen with a clip (Method A the clock face)

Assistant has her back to the magician and spectator.

Mag says to a spectator "Sir may I borrow your pen because it has magical power. Please whisper the name of any playing card to me and I will give your pen magic communication powers as though it is a magic wand and then I will hand the pen to my assistant who will look and listen to your pen to know your card".

After the spectator whispers the playing card name, the magician has his assistant turn and face them.

The magician hands the pen to the assistant and then the assistant pretends to listen to the pen and then names the playing card!

How:
Encode the value of the card:
The end of the pen with the cap is a pointer to an imaginary clock face with the numbers one through 12 (Ace through Queen, the king will be addressed later).

Note: The Magician is holding the pen in the middle kind of like an airplane propeller and has the pen simply pointing to the proper imaginary clock number as he hands it to his assistant.

To make it easy for the assistant the magician should think of the clock face in reverse order to himself.

Encode the suit:
There are several ways this could be done but here is the method we are using based on my assistant's view of the clip:

Spades: body of the clip is facing her.

Clubs: body of the clip is behind the cap and therefore cannot be seen by her.

Hearts and Diamonds both have a side view of the clip and here is how to differentiate:

She pretends that the cap is moving clockwise from her perspective and if the clip is ahead of the cap then the suit is hearts otherwise if the clip is trailing the cap the suit is diamonds.

The King:
Normally the magician holds the pen with his thumb and forefinger, but if a king is named then the magician holds the pen as though it was a queen but holds the pen between his thumb and TWO FINGERS when presenting the pen to his assistant.
--------------

Note that if you and your assistant are somewhere and friends want you to do a trick and you don't have any playing cards with you (haha, I almost always have a deck with me and four separate sevens), but you can do the trick if you or a spectator has a pen with a clip.

The magician should be quiet and absolutely still with mouth tightly shut when handing the pen to his assistant to negate the idea of any verbal communication.

I had always thought the assistant should be in another room and never see the magician when doing this type of trick, but boy was I wrong.

My wife and I were visiting a couple of friends at an old folks home and we did this type of trick with the four sevens where I handed her one of the sevens and she named the card and the nurses went bananas when we did this many times. They called in other nurses to see it done.

I was amazed as much as they were but I was amazed that they were amazed at such a simple trick!

So right now I always carry four sevens whenever we go out. As soon as we have decided on the best pen method I may just carry my Sharpie only.
--------------

This first post about using only a pen with a clip and the imaginary clock face I'm calling Method A. It is very simple but it may be more detectable than other methods.

If the magician and assistant can see each other then there are many, many ways that signals could be made: left foot forward, right foot forward, both feet parallel, left hand presents the card, right hand presents the card, magician adjust his glasses, winks his left eye, winks his right eye, winks both eyes etc.

However there are other methods (other than the clock face method) involving only the pen:

1. The magician's thumb and finger position (could be on the end away from the cap, could be up a little ways so about an inch of the end is showing, could be in the middle of the pen, could be on the cap where about an inch of the cap is toward the assistant). These positions could indicate the suit or they could indicate a starting value of zero, two, four, six.

2. Let's say the pen is always presented pointing directly at the assistant's waist then the pen clip could be conveying information based on its orientation.

3. The pen cap and clip could be toward the assistant or could be away from the assistant.

4. The magician's thumb and forefinger holding the pen should be at right angles to the pen when doing these alternate methods so the assistant has a good view of the entire body of the pen.

5. The whole cap and clip can be rotated in relation to the barrel (I do not use this in method A because I just rotate the whole pen).

6. Slanting the cap toward the assistant versus slanting the cap away from the assistant.

7. Hold the pen with thumb and: one finger, or two fingers, or three fingers, or four fingers.

I may work up a Method B that uses some of the above signaling and hopefully Method B will be less detectable than Method A the clock face. However for now we will keep it simple and use method A (the clock face method) and see how well it goes over.
--------------

My original post above: the spades and clubs are easy to decipher whereas the hearts vs diamonds can be a bit challenging.

Because I believe that hearts and diamonds are named more frequently by spectators I'm changing the suit signaling a little bit.
Therefore the new better way:

Hearts: the clip will be facing the assistant

Diamonds: the clip cannot be seen by the assistant (on back of the cap).

Spades: the clip is leading the cap (assistant's viewpoint)

Clubs: the clip is trailing the cap (assistant's viewpoint)

When the magician is orienting the pen clip for the spades or clubs the magician needs to think in terms of the pen rotating counterclockwise as to whether the clip is leading or not so the pen will be correct for the assistant's clockwise viewpoint.
--------------

I have noticed that pens that have a black cap and a black clip are hard for my assistant to get the correct suit sometimes because the black on black causes the clip to be hard to see, but she usually gets it right.

If she's wrong it's not by much because she says for example five of diamonds when it should be five of hearts which still looks pretty good to the audience.

Therefore a pen with a different color clip works a little better. For example any color pen with a silver clip works great.

Also for your Sharpie (a black on black situation) using some sandpaper on the clip only can give it a grayish tinge and make it more visible.
--------------

Grit my teeth:
Spades vs clubs: because the clip is on the side and the rotational thinking between me and my assistant can be confusing, we have simplified the method so that: If the clip is on the side and I am gritting my teeth then the suit is clubs.

The facial expression of gritting your teeth is one of "hoping they will get it right" and therefore is a natural expression that if spectators see your facial expression I believe they will think nothing of it.

If the spectator can't see your mouth then you could stick your tongue out and up to mean spades, tongue to the right is hearts, tongue down is clubs, tongue to left is diamonds.

If the spectator can't see your eye balls then you could look up (eyeballs only, not your head) to mean spades, look to the right is hearts, look down is clubs, look to left is diamonds.

But these tongue and eye methods might be caught, so we will probably just use the "grit my teeth" expression to mean clubs.
--------------

We are going to experiment and try the eyeballs method to indicate the suit and have some mnemonic memory techniques from my wife's viewpoint:

Eyeballs up: Diamonds because the sun is up in the sky like a shining diamond.

Eyeballs to my left: Hearts because the human heart is on the left side.

Eyeballs down: Spades because they are used to dig down in the earth.

Eyeballs to my right: Clubs because I hold a baseball bat which is a club in my right hand.

Note during our practice sessions I literally held a baseball bat in my right hand with a club symbol on the barrel of the bat and my eyes looking to the right at the bat. All this to help her visual memory later when doing the trick.

During practice I suppose I could put a big toy red diamond on a baseball hat and put it on my head, and have a shovel (spade) at my feet and maybe a big red heart in my left hand to help her with her visual memory, but I don't think that's necessary for the diamonds, spades, hearts because that is a very easy mnemonic association for her.

Also note that with these mnemonics that we are both on the same viewpoint for the suit determination (there is no clockwise versus counterclockwise thinking to determine the suit when using the eyeballs method).

Also note that with the eyeballs method you don't care whether the pen has a clip or not, my assistant is simply noticing where the cap is pointing to get the card value and she is noticing my eyeballs to get the suit. This eyeballs method greatly simplifies the magician's handling of the pen.

Seems like a lot of work to simply code a card, though if you want to go that route, I believe a simpler method of coding the suit is as follows:

The pen is handed with right hand... Clubs = cap on writing end. Spades = writing end uncapped.
The pen is handed with left hand... Hearts = cap on writing end. Diamonds = writing end uncapped.

I would never do this "pen only" trick in an actual show. We like to do this type of trick in an informal setting such as family, friends, nursing home, magic club, her canasta club etc.

We like to do the trick three or four times in a row quickly.

Therefore a single borrowed pen works very well.

In response to Wravyn's "uncapped" suggestion:

The use of an uncapped pen might work if we were actually writing something down which would require a post-it note or something, but in an informal setting why bother, why can't the assistant just verbally tell everyone the name of the selected/whispered card.

The way we are presenting this trick is a little on the humorous side where their pen is a magic wand that is talking to my assistant.

From the audience point of view there would be no logical reason to uncap the pen.

The eyeballs up, down, left, right is super simple for the suit. The clock face method is also super simple for the value. I taught the "clock face eyeballs" method to my 43-year-old son in 5 minutes and he was performing perfectly as my assistant immediately.

There may be routines where uncapping could be a good method, but I don't think uncapping would work well for the way we perform the "pen only" method.

But I will keep the "uncapped" suggestion in my brain in case I find an applicable situation to use it. So thanks Wravyn for the suggestion.

For the pen and clock face method we have changed our patter a little bit to say "the pen is used as a hypnotic tool to make her go into a mild trance". This seems more acceptable to our audience than saying the pen is a magic wand.

Before we start the trick I say the following: "in just a moment to help my assistant get into a mild trance state I will wave this pen three times in front of her face, but first she will look away while you whisper the name of any playing card in my ear".

After they whisper the name of a playing card to me then I have my assistant face us and I proceed as normal holding the pen appropriately and of course waving it three times.