When I was younger, my dad had given me this wonderful deck of cards. At that time, the cards I received had the box (although in poor shape), a few odd (blank cards), and instructional booklet... In the many years, moves, and life changes that I have gone through, I have been able to hold onto the entire deck (which is still in pretty good condition) but have lost all the other items. The most important one being the instructional booklet, which I am now trying to locate a copy of, without having to purchase another deck.
This deck, appears to be a remake of the original 1913 T. E. DeLand Dollar Deck, for the Ace of Spades has S. S. Adams Co., Neptune, N.J. printed on it.
I was and am hoping that there is someone here that has a similar deck with instructions, that would be willing to assist me.
I would appreciate any and all help, thank you
Someone's selling the instructions on eBay...including the not-as-easily-found vintage "Card Locator" wheel.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=deland%20dollar%20deck%20instruction%20sheet%20card&afsrc=1&rmvSB=trueS.S. Adams sold their company to Magic Makers, Inc. in 2009. Magic Makers only sells at wholesale on their own website, but many magic and novelty shops all over the country if not the world carry at least some of the various decks. At present, Magic Makers is selling the Automatic Deck and the Marked Deck - but most of DeLand's decks worked off the same principles: they were marked up the wazoo, letting you find any card anywhere in the deck, they could be arranged to work in stack order, allowing for memorized stack tricks and they were stripped, allowing one to retrieve a specific card from anywhere in the deck instantly, among other interesting feats. They could almost be used interchangeably.
They all suffered the same serious drawback, however - the marking system was so complex because of the amount of information it provided, it also was way too obviously a magic deck for anyone but the least experienced spectators to not pick up on. I had an Automatic deck and not a single person I showed it to thought it was anything other than a special trick deck - "gaffed" or "gimmicked" in the parlance of the trade.
Modern iterations of this deck don't come with the "Card Locator" wheel. The new ones are manufactured for Magic Makers (like all of Magic Makers' decks) by the US Playing Card Company. The Automatic Deck is also on eBay, brand new, for only $7.95 plus shipping.
There's a great article here (it's in Italian) on the whole line of DeLand decks over history.
http://www.praestigiator.com/index.php?p=storia/2010/01/27/le_sorprendenti_creazioni_di_theodore_delandThis is the same article, translated into English courtesy of Google Translate.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.praestigiator.com%2Findex.php%3Fp%3Dstoria%2F2010%2F01%2F27%2Fle_sorprendenti_creazioni_di_theodore_deland&edit-text=&act=urlI finally found a site that has the instruction sheet of a DeLand deck in PDF format, ready to download!
http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/yhst-42779476819977/delands.pdfIt's for the 100 Dollar Deck, but it might very well be the same design as your Dollar Deck.
EDIT - Did some additional research. The Dollar Deck is indeed the same as the Automatic Deck and the 100 Dollar Deck - same design, different names. It came out in 1914 as the Dollar Deck, was renamed in 1919 as the Automatic Deck, then renamed again when S.S. Adams was bought by Magic Makers, who sold it for a while as the 100 Dollar Deck. They've apparently switched back to calling it the Automatic Deck.
http://www.geniimagazine.com/wiki/index.php/Dollar_DeckAnd according to this forum post, it was apparently also sold at some point as the Million Dollar Deck...
http://forums.geniimagazine.com/viewtopic.php?t=30710The author of the post stating this is authoritative on the subject, being a prominent magician.
So those instructions for the 100 Dollar Deck should work just fine with your Dollar Deck, with one possible exception, depending on the age of your deck. The Italian article states that the original Dollar Deck was NOT tapered (stripped) at the edge until it was renamed the Automatic Deck in 1919. Any tricks involving the stripped edge (and there are a LOT of them) would not be possible if you had the original deck - though on the plus side, it's probably fairly rare and worth a few dollars, even if it's in less-than-perfect condition.
This excellent MagicPedia list from Genii Magazine links to articles on a wide variety of "trick decks" including some descriptions.
http://geniimagazine.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Mechanical_DecksThanks for stopping by - I had fun looking up all this information. Despite their shortcomings, I've always had a certain fondness for DeLand's decks, probably for much the same reason as you: I remember them from my youth!
(Read 1858 times)
