There comes a time in every consultant’s life when they must duplicate a signature. More often than not, someone has signed a card, and you need to rapidly recreate the signature to create a duplicate playing card.

As always, I tend to avoid digital methods, opting only for the analog and more reliable methods (a reminder that I love tech magic — it’s almost always more impressive and almost always less reliable).

To duplicate a signature, you will first need to collect the signature. Doing this in a secretive way is part of what makes the trick fooling to the live spectator. If they sign something and then a random guy walks off with it to a nearby photocopier, the chance they’ll be impressed by your trick diminishes.

There are two core ways to collect the signature: