INEXPLICABLE THRIFT STORE FIND INSTRUCTIONS :: PHILL SMITH

Thank you for buying The Inexplicable Thrift Store Find.

Thrift Store Find is a rich piece that is, in its own way, a love letter to vintage magic sets
of the past - I wanted to capture some of the excitement of the prop itself, and the
feeling of potential and mystery.

Featured here is my presentation, I’m sure you will find your own.

EFFECT:
“I know an old guy who used to work for a novelties company, you know the kind of
thing that was sold through adverts in comic books and catalogues, like x ray specs
and joy buzzers and the like, jokes and weird gizmos”

“He was bemoaning that they were always kind of disappointing when they got them in,
like obviously the x ray specs don’t REALLY work - but he said there was one thing they
sold that WASN’T a disappointment, something that actually did always work and they
were never able to explain. And he had actually kept some, and I managed to persuade
him to let me have one, and here it is.”

The magician tables the box, showing it to the audience, before opening it and tipping
out the contents. A small playing piece and a 20 sided dice fall out, and are handed out
for examination. There are also five cards, and a rules card, which he shows then sets
aside, handing the five cards to the punter.

“Could you mix these, but please, don’t look at the other side, because that can kind of
spoil it.” This they do, and the magician takes the cards back and lays them out in a row.
He looks at the rules card. “OK you need to roll that dice, what number is it? 12? OK.”

The magician uses the playing piece to count back and forth across the cards to 12. He
sets down the piece on that card. “So that’s 12. Remember, if you had rolled 11 you would

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INEXPLICABLE THRIFT STORE FIND INSTRUCTIONS :: PHILL SMITH

have got this card, 13, you would have got this card… but: 12.” He turns over that card.
It says “YOU REVEALED:” and there is the sign of a star. “The star!” says the magician,
“Wonderful.” below the picture there is an instruction, to move one to the left. This they
do, and the magician turns that card over too. This card has the sign of the square. “OK,
star, square.”

This card also has instructions, to move four to the right. This they do, and the magician
turns that card over. This card is the cross. “Star, square cross. This card says ‘move two
to the left…’ “ they move the counter again, revealing the wavy lines. “Star, square, cross,
wavy lines.” the magician repeats. This card says to move one card to the right, and this
final card is landed on. When turned over it says “You revealed the star, the square, the
cross and the wavy lines, in that order. Thank you for playing The Psychic Game.” There
is a minor uproar.

“I KNOW!” says the magician. “It’s always right, it’s starting to piss me off.”

NOTES:
Thrift Store Find is a fun little piece, a prop that is all about the prop, that clearly exists
only for the trick, but which is totally ungimmicked. The audience can (and will!) examine
it afterwards, and there is of course nothing to find. It is completely self contained and
the secret mechanism that allows it to always work exists exclusively in your mind.

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METHOD:
Inexplicable Thrift Store Find began as a demo of my Quinta method, a very simple
mathematical force. Essentially the method is that you control the outcome by using
Quinta to ensure that whatever number they roll they will always end on the same
starting card, which then directs the process through to the conclusion above. There
are a few wrinkles along the way however that I will now explain.

The cards must be mixed but their faces not shown. You then lay them out in the
correct order, which you are able to determine because the backs are secretly marked.
The five game cards have, on their back, the word PSYCHIC. Each one has a tiny piece
of stray ink *inside* the white space of one of the letters. One in P, one in S, one in Y, etc,
to H. You lay them down in spelling order (from the perspective of the punters), so P at
the far left, to H at the far right. You are about to control the count to ensure that they
land on the S card to begin with.

You can freely show the rules card and set that aside, but it has on it the crib, that you
are about to use. Have them roll the dice OR if you are feeling frisky, they can simply
turn it over in their hands and choose a number (pssst it doesn’t make any difference)

There are two variables that you need to control in order to reach that force card from
ANY number. Which end you start the count at, and exactly how you do the count.
Which end you start at is simple - you’ll notice that the RULES card has two number
clouds at the bottom - these are not decoration, they are the crib. At the bottom of the
left hand number cloud is a P. If the punters roll one of these numbers you will start
counting from the P end. The right hand number cloud has an H at the bottom - these
numbers all start the count at the H card, on the right hand side. That is simple enough.

The only other detail is the origin of the count. If the number is odd, you start with the
counter on the first card, then as you move it to the next card you count ONE. If the
number is even, you start with the counter NEXT to the first card, and your first move it
onto this first card, and you count ONE then.

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Once you have begun counting you then count back and forth across the cards. So if
they roll 7: you place the counter on the P card. You then move it to the next card, the S
card and count ONE. Then to the Y card TWO. Then to the C card THREE. Then to the
H card FOUR. Then you go back to the C card FIVE. Then to the Y card SIX. Then to the
S card: SEVEN and you stop there. This is beguiling in its simplicity - the rules outlined
in Quinta allow this to be done in any circumstance with any number, but the use in
The Psychic Game means you have almost nothing to remember and zero chance of
slipping up. You just have to remember that ODD numbers start ON the cards, you can
remember this with the phrase ODDS ON.

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ISSUES:
If you look at the structure of the routine, mixing the cards isn’t necessary for the routine
to hit and be deceptive, it is simply part of the procedure and makes it a little harder to
backtrack. My process in adding the marks was originally to keep track of the cards as
insurance against them getting jumbled - being able to mix the cards is really just an
added bonus.

I’ve discovered that the way audience’s think about the routine they start wondering if
they had rolled a different number it would have worked. In handing the dice out at the
beginning I ask them to roll it a few times - this precludes the possibility of the dice
being weighted. As a professional nerd a D20 (20 sided dice) is immediately familiar,
but to many people it isn’t such a normal object, so having them roll it a few times
allows them to rapidly normalise it. Make sure however that if you do this you verbally
flag the ‘real’ roll as significant so it doesn’t look like you just waited until they test rolled
a number you wanted. “OK I want you to roll the dice and this time, this roll, that’s the
roll we’re going to use - happy with that? Ready?” Focus the moment.

The openness of the routine invites investigation and discussion afterwards, and the
topic of other old tricks and toys comes up a lot, so Google about and familiarise
yourself with a few examples. If you use my narrative of knowing someone who worked
at that company, lock in your mind a mental image of a person who is in that role so
you can’t get caught out or perplexed if they ask about him - I just combined a couple
of old magicians I used to know to create a mental picture. It doesn’t come up a lot but
it’s worth having in the tank.

Similarly the prop itself might be scrutinised - it’s designed to look like the real deal but it’s not
professionally aged. If someone asks if this is an actual vintage piece, you might not want to
get sucked into that so I’ve explained that there are people who collect these old pieces and
this is a modern reproduction of the original - the actual original is very hard to find, expensive,
and of course too fragile to bring out performing. “One of my friends scanned the original
cards and just had a printer print everything off so we could share it with people again.”

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A SPECIAL REQUEST
The original marketed name for the Inexplicable Thrift Store Find was The Psychic
Game, which is clearly what is written on the box and the cards etc. Selling direct to
people at Blackpool etc this didn’t seem a problem, but when I started getting orders
from retailers, I had to adjust it. The worst case scenario is that a spectator will be
engaged by and excited about the effect, Google it with the hopes of obtaining it, or
even just finding out more about the piece, and finding that rather than a genuine slice
of strange from history, the trick is just that - a trick some beardy guy is selling on the
internet.

I changed the retail name of the effect to the Inexplicable Thrift Store Find, which is a
ludicrous mouthful and a pain to type, and stopped referring to the effect by it’s original
name online. Here’s the special request: please do the same. If you want to talk about
the effect on Facebook or the Cafe or wherever, please don’t use the term The Psychic
Game, basically anywhere Google can find it - I just want to insulate us all from the
nosiness of spectators. I have been worried by this a few times, a friend released an
effect which was titled after a key concept in it’s presentation, and anyone googling the
term immediately finds his sales site for the product. This isn’t usually going to be a
problem, but if we can make it so it’s NEVER a problem, that seems all the better.

So I hope this is OK for me to ask you - if you feel compelled to discuss the effect online
please call it Thrift Store Find or TSF or whatever, if you have to refer to The Psychic
Game, which fair enough you might if you are discussing the props etc, please use the
abbreviation TPG - we’ll all know what that means, and ot won’t give Google TMI.

I genuinely appreciate your help on this specific and probably needless point <3

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That’s about it, it’s a very simple, weird little piece. I like the structure that puts audiences
in the position of understanding that the trick does itself, when in fact it doesn’t. I also
like performing it for magicians because the MOVE 2 TO THE LEFT has a very self-
working Videomind feel to it, which is then punctured as the final card is turned over,
revealing that you have lead them down the garden path.

I hope you enjoy performing the effect as much as I’ve enjoyed creating it and sharing it
with you. As ever if you get stuck or anything doesn’t make sense, please get in touch at:
info@miscellaneousmiracles.co.uk and I’ll try and help.

Phill Smith
PHILL SMITH, 2017

Copyright © 2017 by Phill Smith

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in
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www.miscellaneousmiracles.co.uk