New Discovery - The Wizard's Pack

[tobyedwards]

I am picturing below, five photos of a recently discovered "magic" deck called The Wizard's Pack of Playing Cards, issued by Adams and Company, 25 Bromfield Street, Boston, MA., that is not in the Hochman Encyclopedia. Both the front of the OB and the inside front cover of the accompanying 8-page booklet of directions state "Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Adams & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington." The first photo is of the front of the original box and the second photo shows the rather plain Ace of Spades. The third photo shows the KH which clearly indicates that this deck was manufactured by Dougherty. The cards are square cornered with no indices and the fourth photo shows the pattern back design. The cards measure 2 15/32" x 3 9/16" but, as is indicated in the instruction booklet, the deck has been taper cut (very subtly) so that one end is approximately 1/32" shorter than the opposite end, thus, enabling the user to perform a variety of tricks with these cards. The fifth photo shows the opening two pages from the booklet of directions. I found it interesting to note that later in that decade, The Waterproof Playing Card Co., would have their place of business several doors down at 50 Bromfield Street but Adams & Co. had already relocated to No. 4 Pearl Street in Boston by 1874. Although the name Adams was quite well known in Boston, I also had to wonder if there was any connection between the Adams who issued this deck and the famous S.S. Adams in N.J. who issued the many different marked decks some 50 years later.

[Don Boyer]

I am picturing below, five photos of a recently discovered "magic" deck called The Wizard's Pack of Playing Cards, issued by Adams and Company, 25 Bromfield Street, Boston, MA., that is not in the Hochman Encyclopedia. Both the front of the OB and the inside front cover of the accompanying 8-page booklet of directions state "Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Adams & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington." The first photo is of the front of the original box and the second photo shows the rather plain Ace of Spades. The third photo shows the KH which clearly indicates that this deck was manufactured by Dougherty. The cards are square cornered with no indices and the fourth photo shows the pattern back design. The cards measure 2 15/32" x 3 9/16" but, as is indicated in the instruction booklet, the deck has been taper cut (very subtly) so that one end is approximately 1/32" shorter than the opposite end, thus, enabling the user to perform a variety of tricks with these cards. The fifth photo shows the opening two pages from the booklet of directions. I found it interesting to note that later in that decade, The Waterproof Playing Card Co., would have their place of business several doors down at 50 Bromfield Street but Adams & Co. had already relocated to No. 4 Pearl Street in Boston by 1874. Although the name Adams was quite well known in Boston, I also had to wonder if there was any connection between the Adams who issued this deck and the famous S.S. Adams in N.J. who issued the many different marked decks some 50 years later.

Hey, Toby,


If I was a betting man, I'd wager that these cards were manufactured not so much for magic as they were for gambling, specifically cheating at gambling.  I could easily imagine a few ways that a faro dealer could take advantage of a deck like this and not have to resort to faro shuffling - perhaps it's possible that some card players were getting wise to the faro shuffling trick used by the house in order to keep the deck stacked with a certain number of tie draws, allowing them to keep all the bets made.  It's just that they look so much like a faro deck, I suspect strongly that many if not most of these decks, back when they were made, ended up on gaming tables and not in a magician's routines.