Routined Manipulation Part Two

This is the second part of the masterfully written classic work on magic. Together with Routined Manipulation Part One and Routined Manipulation Finale it is an excellent work on sleight-of-hand magic. The effects taught  are suitable from stage and parlor to intimate settings of close-up  magic.

This volume has a large section on billiard ball manipulation. Barrows Mussey calls it 'the best thing in print on the subject'. And Al Koran's Blindfold Card Act is a beauty on its own.

Paul Fleming wrote:

This book is a sequel to Mr. Ganson's Routined Manipulation  (examined in our Review No. 153), and, like its predecessor, covers a  wider range of conjuring than one might expect to find in a treatise  labeled "manipulation." Cards, coins, billiard balls, knives,  handkerchiefs, thimbles, and other objects are used in the tricks that  make up the contents of this 132-page book, which is printed on coated  paper of good quality, illustrated with 178 line drawings and  photographic reproductions (predominantly the latter), and bound in  cloth with the title gold-stamped on the spine.

Outstanding in the 21 pages of card tricks are the author's Opening Card  Routine of fan productions (4 pp., 4 ill.) and Al Koran's Blindfold  Card Act (6 pp.) which consists of seven feats that are effective but  not difficult. In the field of coins are Ken Brooke's neat version of  The Cap and Pence (5 pp., 9 ill.), Henry Hay's excellent Coins Up the  Sleeve (3 pp., 2 ill.), and a trick called Money Attracts Money in which  four coins are made to pass, one by one, from right to left hand. For  lovers of silk handkerchief magic there is a combination entitled  Color-Change, Penetration, and Vanish (6 pp., 8 ill.). The  Color-Changing Knife (9 pp., 17 ill.) is a detailed treatment of six  sleights and a full routine. Thimble Manipulation (16 pp., 28 ill.) is  second only to billiard-ball magic in breadth of coverage; for the  author here describes several kinds of thimbles and holders, explains  sleights, and winds up with a thimble production routine, and even a  special thimble routine for children's audiences.

But it is the section called Modern Billiard-Ball Manipulation (40 pp.,  72 ill.) that constitutes the piece de resistance of the book. Types and  sizes of balls; care and preparation of the hands; productions,  vanishes, and acquitments of balls; manipulation of the shell; ball  holders - all these and other important aspects of billiard-ball  conjuring are explored in detail. Finally, there are three full,  step-by-step routines, including one which ends with the performer  holding eight solid balls that have been produced magically from his  bare hands.

Lewis Ganson's first book, Expert Manipulation of Playing Cards, promptly took its place as the best treatise in print on fan-productions and the back-hand palming of cards. His Routined Manipulation: Part I was equally well received by magicians, and speedily became a best-seller. In the few months that Routined Manipulation: Part II has been available, it too has won recognition as a most excellent  book, and one which (like the earlier Ganson works) belongs definitely  among the "best buys" in magical literature. Mr. Ganson is a writer of  whom we have no fear of tiring, and we welcome the rumor that he may by  and by give us yet another book entitled More Routined Manipulation.

1st edition 1950; 143 pages.

1. Contents

2. Preface

3. Prefatory Note

4. Money Attracts Money

5. The Color Changing Pocket Knife

6. Thimble Manipulation

7. The Crystal Prism

8. Card Quota

9. Ken Brooke's Chapter

10. Henry Hay's "Coins Up the Sleeve"

11. Colour Change, Penetration and Vanish

12. Beer is Best

13. Cecil Keech's "Ropan Silk"

14. My Opening Card Routine

15. Dr. Geimer's Dice Routine

16. Koran's Miracle Blindfold Card Act

17. The Sympathetic Discs

18. Egg Bag, Bag Egg

19. Will Ayling's "Fashion Parade"

20. Modern Billiard Ball Manipulation

21. Conclusion