Double blank decks explained: the card with nothing on it

A double blank card has nothing printed on either side: no face, no back, just white card stock. On its own it does nothing, which is exactly why magicians keep a few around. It’s a writing surface, a raw material for making your own gaffs, and the card you finish on when a trick ends with the ink disappearing.

Why would anyone want a card with nothing on it?

Most people meet gaff cards through the flashy ones: cards that change, cards with two faces, cards with two backs. The double blank is the quiet one in the drawer. It doesn’t fool anyone by itself, but it turns up again and again in routines, in homemade gimmicks and in finales. If you’ve started collecting trick decks after reading our guide to trick decks and which to buy first, the double blank is a good next step, because it teaches you how gaffs are built and used rather than doing the work for you.

What is a double blank card?

A gaff is a prop designed to look like something real while secretly doing a job. A gaff card is a playing card printed or altered to do that job. Blank cards come in three main kinds:

• Blank face: a normal back, but the face is white. These are covered in our guide to blank decks.
• Blank back: a normal face with a white back.
• Double blank: white on both sides. No face, no back.

Because a double blank doesn’t look like a playing card at all, it reads to an audience as a little white card, closer to a notecard than to anything from a deck.

How does a double blank work?

The principle is simple: a double blank is whatever you make it. There is no secret printed on it, so the method always lives somewhere else, in your handling, in a switch, or in what you add to the card yourself.

That idea is old. In The Art of Juggling or Legerdemain (1612), Samuel Rid describes cards that are shown “transformed into blancke Cardes, white on both sides,” and explains that “you must haue Cardes made for the purpose.” His cards weren’t modern double blanks, but the effect he describes, printed cards becoming white on both sides, is the one a double blank lets you finish on today.

Making gaffs used to be a home craft. In Modern Magic (1876), Professor Hoffmann tells readers making double-faced cards to “peel off half the thickness of each card” and paste two together. That’s the other job of a double blank: it’s clean stock you can draw on, cut or combine with other cards when you’re building something of your own.

When do magicians use double blanks?

• Predictions and written thoughts. A spectator can write on a double blank like a notecard, or you can write a prediction on one. It doesn’t carry a deck’s back design, so nobody expects it to be one of the cards in play.
• The blank finale. A trick where the faces fade away lands hardest when the last card is completely white on both sides and can be handed out.
• Whole blank-deck routines. Some performers work with a deck where every card is blank on both sides and a single signed card is the only one with anything on it, so the signature is easy to follow as it moves.
• Making your own gimmicks. Double blanks are the base stock for homemade gaffs, which is why many magicians buy them by the deck.
• Stage and parlour work. Jumbo double blanks give a larger audience a white card they can see clearly from the back of a room.

How do you learn to use double blanks?

Be honest with yourself: a double blank isn’t a trick, it’s a tool. The skill is in what surrounds it. Start here:

1. Learn a reliable double lift. Many blank-card effects depend on showing one card while another is really there. Our double lift guide covers the basics.
2. Practise writing cleanly. If a spectator or you will write on the card, test your marker on the stock first so it doesn’t smear.
3. Make one simple gaff. Try building a basic card of your own from a double blank. You’ll understand commercial gaffs much better once you’ve made one.
4. Script the ending. Decide when the blank card is revealed and whether it can be handed out. The moment of seeing nothing is the effect, so give it room.

None of this is hard to start, but routines that switch cards take real practice before they look natural.

Which products help with double blank cards?

• Double Blank Bicycle Cards: a deck of 52 double blank cards (box colour varies). Enough to practise with, write on and build gaffs from.
• Bicycle Jumbo Double Blank: jumbo double blank cards made for stage and parlour routines, so a bigger audience can see them.
• The Art of Juggling or Legerdemain: Samuel Rid’s 1612 book, a free download, with the early trick where cards turn white on both sides.

For more gaff-based tricks, browse our gimmick-based magic.

What are the common mistakes with double blanks?

• Leaving them in your working deck. A stray double blank that falls out mid-trick is hard to explain. Keep gaffs separate and count them back after you perform.
• Showing the card too early. If the blank is your finish, don’t let anyone glimpse a white edge before the reveal.
• Treating it as the trick. A blank card on its own isn’t magic. The surprise comes from the story you tell before it appears.
• Using a mismatched size. If you mix a double blank into a routine with another deck, make sure the size and finish match, or the difference shows.
• Forgetting the clean-up. If you hand out the blank card at the end, have a plan for any other gaffs still in your hands.

Frequently asked questions