To The Letter
You show nine small brass engraved lettered tiles that when assembled form the word "STARTLING." A spectator chooses a card, which is not looked at and is placed face down on the table. You tell spectators that "STARTLING" is the only word in the English language that allows you to remove one letter at a time, and at each phase, you're left with a legitimate word.You demonstrate this phenomenon until you're down to a single letter. You then take the tiles and rearrange them and amazingly, they spell the name of the chosen card.
Playing the Cards
If you have basic skills with cards, such as those explained here on this site, you can perform this trick. With tiles in hand, this one is all performance. I like the wordplay and used a theme of Scrabble and crossword puzzles to present the effect.The effect comes with a pouch to carry the tiles, however, since the trick relies on the tiles being in a certain arrangement, the pouch didn't work for me while table hopping - the tiles became a jumbled mess. As a result, I used a small pill box to securely hold the tiles so they were ready for performance.
This one requires a flat surface to lay down the tiles and the reset is fairly fast, but should be done out of site of spectators. Another consideration, you'll need good sight lines so everyone at a table can see the tiny tiles. I like this one, but at $60, it’s pricey. MSRP: (US) $60
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Dealers can purchase from Murphy's Magic Supplies, Inc.
