GREEN'S CARD CATCHING

Cliff Green catches cards from thin air.
GREEN'S CARD CATCHING
By Richard Robinson

In the midst of manipulating a pack of cards the performer commences to catch cards from the very thin air, occasionally interspersed by catching a fan of cards. The hand is shown empty after every production. The cards are caught with the back of the hand towards the audience.
Setup
The slip color change sleight is the basis of the working, however the deck is setup so the use of the sleight is not apparent.

The cards are held in left hand. While holding the pack and appearing to square it up with the right hand, reverse half of pack so that the front half of pack are faces downstage towards audience and back, upstage half are faces towards performer.

Before working the trick, it is a good idea to give the deck a thorough shuffle so that each card produced varies in value and color from the previous one.
Manipulation

Keeping the downstage face of the deck held in the left hand directly at the spectators, the right hand moves to the face of the deck, fingers extended and together, as if squaring the deck. As the right hand blocks the view of the cards, the left first finger slides the back card of the deck towards the left wrist. The right thumb extends up, the stage right top corner of the sliding card

With the deck stationery in the left hand, the right thumb closes on the protruding corner of the card, clipping it in a thumb palm, and moves stage right away from the deck. By applying pressure on the clipped corner, the card will tilt up so that the fingers of the right hand can be momentarily spread apart. As the right hand swings moves downstage, the card is shifted to it can be clipped at its corners between the first and second fingers and third and fourth fingers.

With the card in front palm position, the hand swings up and out. As this motion is made, the thumb is inserted between the card and the palm of the hand, the third and fourth fingers release the corner they hold, and the card snaps into view, held by the thumb and first finger by one corner.

Green's Handling
Square up the doped pack. Show the right hand to be empty, calling attention to the fact that you are holding an ordinary pack of cads and during this slip a card from back of pack to palm of right hand.
Make an upward move with the hand, at the same time release card from third and fourth fingers bringing the thumb beneath the card and raising it. All this is done in one motion, the effect being that card is plucked from the air.
Place the card on the front of the pack, at the same time slip another card to the palm and produce it, continuing so with remainder of the reversed cards. With practice a number of cards can be slipped and produced in a fan. I find this trick has very good effect when cleverly executed. Performance Notes. This is an ingenious handling which is based on the presumption the deck is as it normally is with all the cards facing in one direction. The result is what might be termed an optical illusion, although certainly manipulation is involved. Cliff Green is best known for the first version of the Interlocking Card Production. Prior to a lengthy career in vaudeville, as a teenager he contributed 'Green's New Card Catching' to The Sphinx magazine in 1911.
Presen By Allmagic