Cards as Weapons by Ricky Jay

Happy new 2007 to this happy coterie of readers. I was going to do Powell's Music of Time today but we did an old Etonian yesterday. I don't think Rick Jay was at Eton. Powell can wait. Jay's book can show up anywhere, although they are uncommon in UK & Europe.



Ricky Jay. CARDS AS WEAPONS. Darien House, NY 1977. ISBN 0446387568

Current Prices
$170-$360 /£90-£180 Want level 50- 80 High

GAMES /CARD TRICKS
Amusing and useful illustrated book showing how to throw playing cards better - subtitled "A Treatise on the art of throwing, scaling, juggling, boomeranging and manipulating ordinary playing cards with particular emphasis on impressing one's friends and providing a deadly yet inexpensive means of self-defence". Says it all. Jay is something of a media star (MTV Etc.,) and the book is much wanted .It is not especially elusive although it's hard to find a sharp copy as it is a thin large format paperback. Book reveals secrets that some magicians feel should not have been revealed; as a manual it has been used by blokes like Chow Yun-fat, Andy Lau, and Stephen Chow in their gambling films.

VALUE? Copies show up a bit creased at around $200 and twice that for fine or signed ones. Signed are not that hard as Jay is pretty approachable and often seen at book fairs etc., being a serious book collector. God bless him.