Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

We have had occasion more than once to direct you to turn round the cards, and it will be well for you to know how to do this neatly and without exciting suspicion. Hold the four cards fanwise in the left hand, the fingers behind and the thumb in front of the cards. Having exhibited them, turn their faces towards yourself, and with the thumb and finger of the right hand close the fan, and taking them by their upper ends lay them face downwards on the table. Their lower ends will now be away from you, and when you desire again to exhibit the cards (in a transformed condition), you have only to turn them over sideways, and pick them up by the ends which are now directed towards you. This little artifice (which is simplicity itself in practice, though a little difficult to describe) must be carefully studied, as upon neat manipulation in this respect the illusion of the trick mainly depends.