Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

We must not omit to mention that there is a mode of performing the “torn card” trick in which the use of the mechanical card is dispensed with. In this case the performer secretly takes an ordinary card, say the knave of spades, and tears off one corner, which he carefully preserves. The card thus mutilated he places in a card-box, or other similar piece of apparatus. Pack in hand, he advances to the company, and “forces” the knave of spades, having, meanwhile, the little corner piece of the concealed card hidden between the second and third fingers of his right hand. The card having been drawn, he requests the drawer to tear it up, and place the pieces on a plate, which he hands him for that purpose. Having received the pieces, he says carelessly, “You had better keep one piece for the purpose of identification;” and, so saying, hands him apparently one of the fragments of the card just torn, but really the concealed corner piece, which he drops from his hand on the plate for that purpose in the very act of picking up. The trick then proceeds as already described up to the finding of the card partially restored, in which condition it is handed to the drawer, and its identity proved by showing that the torn edge exactly corresponds with the corner retained. The trick may either end here, or, by using a second card-box, card-tripod, or the like, the card and corner may be again changed for a complete card.