Tarot Sized, Indexed, One Way, and Marked ESP Cards - Jim Chartier
$50.00 (pre-sale, Order by July 31 for $40.00)
Continental US only. Email for foreign shipping
Payment can be made through PayPal to:  james@jameschartier.com

My Take:

ESP cards have been around for a long, long time. They were developed in the early 1930's by Karl Zener (they are still known as Zener cards) and J.B. Rhine for testing a person's ESP abilities. Ninety years later, they look pretty much the same way they did then.

The deck I received is beautifully printed on nice card stock. The backs are blue with a myriad of stars that allows you to know what each is. (i.e. marked) But the marking is very subtle. I was told they were marked and looked for quite a while and didn't catch it. I am sure your audience never will either.  The deck is also very subtly one way and came in a very nice little black cloth bag.

Jim has released these cards in tarot size which makes them much more visible to your audience. The one thing here that really sells it to me a major change to one of the symbols. We are all used to saying "the card with three wavy lines." Every other one of the symbols has a simple descriptive name. (Circle, Cross, Square and Star). "Three wavy lines" is just awkward. Jim has taken the advice of Linking Ring artist, Tony Dunn, and replaced the three lines with a triangle. To me, this is a no brainer. Attractive and speeds up your routine. He has also added indexes to the upper left and lower right corners so the cards can be recognized in a fan.

I am sure a lot of you are familiar with Dan Tong. He developed one of the seminal book tests called the Peek-a-Book test which was later produced in printed form by Larry Becker. In 1979, Ray Goulet of the Magic Art Studio (R.I.P. Ray) released Dan's book E.S.P., a small booklet of tricks with the Zener deck. He has contributed a couple of his effects which are included in the package.  (I understand that the original book is being prepared for re-release in the near future. I have no details but Mr. Chartier should).

If you have done card tricks for more than a week, you have run into Zener based tricks. Nick Trost did several booklets on it. Howard Adams released "OICUFESP". Even Tarbell had a section in the library. If you do any routines with the deck, you should really consider this purchase. The cards are beautiful and it will add some pizzazz to your routines. Highly recommended.

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