Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

The reader will, no doubt, already have conjectured that the card drawn is a forced one, and that the supposed restored card was concealed beforehand under the false bottom of the card-box. This pretended restored card is, in reality, an ingenious though simple piece of apparatus, constructed as follows:--A piece of tin is cut to the exact size and shape of a card; out of this, at one of the corners, is cut an oblong piece, measuring about one inch by five-eighths. This piece is attached by a spring hinge, a a, on one side of it, to the larger piece of tin, in such manner that it can be folded back (see Fig. 54) flat against it; the action of the spring, however, bringing it back again, when released, to its original position. To this piece of tin is soldered lengthways a narrow tail-piece, of such a length as to extend nearly to the opposite end of the larger piece of tin. This tail-piece forms a kind of handle wherewith to bend back the smaller piece of tin on its hinge, and at the same time acts as a check to prevent the action of the spring pressing the smaller piece beyond the plane of the larger one. A playing card is split in two in order to reduce its thickness, and the face of the card thus reduced is pasted on the front of the larger piece of tin.