An Impromptu Torn & Restored Card: New Teaching

The Card Magic of Paul LePaul, first published in 1959, is considered by some to be a foundational text for card magicians, akin to the popular The Royal Road to Card Magic.

While I am not a natural card magician by any stretch of the imagination, Paul LePaul’s book is a treasure trove of tricks, sleights, effects and routines that I can’t help but be intrigued by. From notes on different methods of palming (with different sections for left-handed and right-handed people) to entire routines, there’s something for everyone.

Even I knew of the torn and restored magic trick, if not LePaul’s specific rendition. This staple of card magic utilizes everyone’s favorite prop – a deck of cards – and creates a miracle in miniature before your audience’s eyes.

The effect

You’re out with your friends – it could be a large dinner date, a planned house party, or a spontaneous trip to the zoo, just the two of you. One of your close friends loves watching you perform magic, and asks you to do something for them, just something small.

You hadn’t planned on performing anything, but you bring out a deck of cards and ask your friend to pick one. They select the four of hearts, and you start tearing a corner of their card. You give this torn corner to your friend and tell them to grip it tight in their fist for safe keeping. 

With that corner secure, you tear up the rest of their card, ignoring your friend’s surprised gasp. You put the torn sections of card into the middle of the deck and hold it face-down before you.

Now, you tell your friend that you’re going to put their card back together. They don’t see how that could be possible: they just witnessed you tear it up, and now who knows where it is in the deck? But they eagerly watch as you raise the deck and sharply riffle back one corner of the cards. 

A single card pops out, almost fully formed… except for one missing corner.

It's the four of hearts, your friend’s selected card. What’s more, when they open their fist and place their torn corner to the edge of the card, it’s a perfect fit.

The method

LePaul’s mostly impromptu method relies on one small piece of preparation: tearing a corner off any card (LePaul recommends the Joker) and placing this face down on top of your face-down deck.

When preparing the card, I suggest holding the Joker with its back design towards you. Then, tear the corner forward – away from your body. By doing so, the tear line on the back of the card will be less visible on top of the deck.

This deck is then ready to be brought out at any time to perform this trick. (Of course, at the start of the trick and up ‘til the tearing of the card (step 2 below), you’ll need to ensure your audience doesn’t see the torn corner of this top card – easily hidden by your thumb placed naturally on the deck when holding it in a simple mechanic’s grip).

1. Begin the trick by asking your friend to select a card from the deck you spread face up in your hands. After the selection, flip the deck face down.

2. Tear the index corner of your friend’s selected card (try to roughly match the shape of the tear in the prepared Joker). LePaul recommends letting your friend complete the tear themselves.

3. Hold your friend’s selected card in your right hand and perform a topchange, swapping the selected card for your pre-torn card. Do this as your friend places the torn piece securely in their fist.

4. With your pre-torn Joker card now in hand, place the rest of the deck face-up on the table – their chosen torn card is hidden by the deck above it.

5. Tear up the Joker card, making sure to keep the face of the card hidden throughout. Your friend still believes this card to be theirs.

6. Lift half of the deck up off the table and place the torn pieces face-down into the middle of the deck.

7. Pick up the deck face-up in your left hand and riffle the edge, letting your friend see the torn pieces face-down in the middle. Secure a break in the deck one card above the torn pieces before riffling through the rest of it. The slow riffle makes securing this break much more natural.

8. Perform a turn-over pass, turning the deck face down.This sleight moves the torn pieces from the middle of the deck to the bottom, with one full card below keeping them from falling out completely. 

9. Remove the bottom card from the deck, releasing the torn corners into the palm of your left hand. Place the bottom card you removed into the middle of the deck, and then do the same with the top card in keeping with the procedure.

10. Finally, move your grip down to the low corner of the deck squeezing the torn pieces in your fist. Then, sharply riffle the outer right corner of the deck with your other hand: this makes your friend’s card, missing its corner, jump out.

LePaul refers to torn and restored as an “old” card trick; and he wrote this back in 1959. The fact that this is still a widely performed magic trick is testament to how popular and effective it is. The plot is classic: it captivates an audience, is simple to explain and understand, and utilizes a deck of cards, which is to magicians what a black cat is to fictitious witches.

Out of all the accessories and symbols associated with magicians, I think cards may be the most enduring – if your audience likes magic, they’ll inevitably get excited when you bring your deck out. Being able to perform this trick spontaneously, at any point, adds an intensity and intimacy to your performance that’ll draw your friends, loved ones, or even strangers in.