How to crimp a card to find it again

A crimp is a small, secret bend in a card. It lets you find a chosen card again by sight or touch, or cut the deck right to it, even after a shuffle. Put the bend in a corner while you square the deck, keep it light, and use it to finish tricks with a clean location. S. W. Erdnase’s The Expert at the Card Table (1902) gives a whole section to using the crimp to indicate where to cut.

What is a crimp?

A crimp is a bend secretly put into a playing card so you can locate it later. Magicians use many kinds of crimp, but the simplest is a slight bend at one corner. From the front the deck looks normal. From your side, or under your fingertip, the bent card stands out.

The same idea has a long history at the gambling table. Card cheats used a bend to mark where a deck should be cut, and Robert-Houdin’s Card-Sharpers: Their Tricks Exposed (1863) covers bent-corner cards and “the bridge” among the methods it explains. In magic we use the principle for entertainment, never for a game with money on it.

How do you put in a corner crimp?

1. Get the card to the bottom or the top. The easiest moment is right after a spectator returns their card and you control it to the top or bottom of the deck. Our guide to card control techniques shows simple ways to do that.
2. Hold the deck in dealer’s grip, face down in your left hand, as if you are about to deal.
3. Bend one corner. If the card is on the bottom, press down lightly on its inner corner with your left fingertips so that corner curls a little away from the rest of the deck. If it is on top, the right fingers can do the same as they square the cards.
4. Keep it small. A bend you can just see from the side is enough. A big curl is easy for others to spot.
5. Square the deck and carry on. The bend happens during a natural squaring action, so nobody sees anything unusual.

How do you find the crimped card again?

• By sight. Look at the inner end of the deck from your side. The bent corner leaves a tiny gap above or below the card.
• By touch. Run your thumb along the corner of the deck. You will feel the step where the bend sits.
• By cutting to it. Lift the cards above the gap. If you crimped the chosen card on the bottom and then had the deck cut and the cut completed, cutting at the gap brings the chosen card back to the bottom.

Once you can find the card, finish however you like: deal it face up, reveal it from your pocket, or have the spectator name it and turn it over.

Can the spectator cut to it for you?

Often, yes. A crimped card leaves a small break in the deck, and fingers tend to find it. In his section “To indicate the location for the cut” (pp. 48–52), Erdnase notes, “There is little or no difficulty in finding the crimp,” and observes that “many an unsophisticated player has unconsciously cut into a crimp.” You can’t rely on that every time, so plan a finish that still works if the cut misses, such as finding the card yourself by sight.

A simple trick to practise with

1. Have a card chosen, remembered and returned to the middle of the deck.
2. Control it to the bottom and crimp its inner corner as you square up.
3. Give the deck a few complete cuts, or let the spectator cut it. The crimped card stays where it is in relation to the others.
4. Spread the cards between your hands, face down. When you reach the bent corner, stop and slowly turn that card face up. It is their card.

The trick feels impossible because the spectator saw the deck cut. Practise the crimp until you can make it without looking down.

What are the common mistakes?

• Bending too much. A heavy crimp shows from the audience’s side and can stay in the card for good.
• Looking at your hands. Make the bend while you talk to the spectator, just as you would square the deck anyway.
• Forgetting to remove it. After the trick, press the card flat as you gather the deck so the next trick starts clean.
• Using a brand-new, stiff deck. A deck that has been handled a little takes a light bend more easily. Try one from our playing cards range and break it in first.

What helps you take it further?

• The Expert at the Card Table by S. W. Erdnase, free from our public-domain library. It covers blind shuffles and cuts, the location for the cut “by crimp and by jog”, palming and shifts, then the conjuring tricks built on them.
• Card-Sharpers: Their Tricks Exposed by Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, also free. It explains the false cut, the pass, the bridge and prepared cards such as bent-corner cards.

Pair the crimp with the bottom-card glimpse or the key card trick, and find more in our card tricks collection.

Frequently asked questions