Roterberg, August: New Era Card Tricks
©1897 1st Edition, Roterbert, London
Hardcover, 279 pages
©2004 Magico
Hardcover, 284 pages

Comments (Lybrary.com) New Era Card Tricks is the masterpiece of Roterberg's publishing efforts. Scholars are pretty sure that the elusive Erdnase must have known and read this book. It is still today an extremely good and important work on cards. It is a book any serious card man should read. This is to a large part the foundation on which a lot of the later card work has been built. Richard Hatch wrote a wonderful introduction that by itself is worth reading. He starts:

August Roterberg is chiefly remembered today as a pioneering early twentieth century American magic dealer and as the author of the books featured here in digital form. Magic collectors seek out his palming coins, catalogs, apparatus, ephemera and variant copies of his books. But perhaps Roterberg’s more significant legacy is that he inaugurated the modern age of magic publishing, for his books are the first substantial ones on conjuring in English written expressly for magicians. Those conjuring books that preceded Roterberg were either exposures rather than teaching texts or were - like the excellent works by Robert-Houdin, Hoffmann and Sachs - issued by mainstream publishers targeting a general (and often juvenile) audience. Roterberg’s books were published by a magic dealer specifically for sale in magical depots, rather than for wide distribution to the general public. When one considers that most serious magic books today are issued by specialty publishers to be distributed primarily through magic dealers, one recognizes in Roterberg the source of this publishing model in the English speaking marketplace....

Contents:

7 SLEIGHTS
7 The Double Handed Pass
10 The Herrmann Pass
13 The Charlier Pass
16 The Force
17 Changes
18 The Top Change
19 The Bottom Change
20 The New Top Change
22 The Mexican Turn Over
22 The Excelsior Change
24 The Color Change
24 First Method
25 Second Method
27 Third Method
27 Fourth Method
29 The Card Palm
29 The Regular Palm
31 The Buatier Palm
32 The Back Hand Palm
34 New Thought Card Sleights
35 First Method
35 Second Method
36 Third Method
37 The New Glimpse
38 First Method
38 Second Method
39 Third Method
40 The Bridge
41 The Prearranged Pack
42 The Glide
43 The Revolution
44 False Shuffles
44 The Cut
46 Shuffling the Entire Pack
46 For One Card

48 TRICKS WITH CARDS.
48 Ne Plus Ultra
48 First Method
48 Second Method
57 Penetration of Matter
57 First Method
59 Second Method
61 Magic Versus Mnemonics
63 The Card Receptacle
64 The Appearance of Desired Cards
65 The Mysterious Production
66 The Improved Mysterious Production
67 The Improved Cards Read Behind the Back
68 The Hypnotised Card
69 The Queen of the Air
71 The Lost Found
72 The Card Caught on the Plate
73 The Lantern of Diogenes
75 Extraordinary Restoration
76 Apparent Second Sight
78 The Attached Card
80 Cards Shot Against a Hat
82 War in Peace
83 The New Card Table
85 Thought Reading Extraordinary
87 A Mysterious Change
89 The Card and Handkerchief
91 The Itinerant Card
92 The Terpsichorean Card
94 The Card in the Pocket
95 The Spectator as Conjurer
97 Gravity Defied
100 The Demon Envelope
102 The Ubiquitous Card
103 Four Cards Caught at the Fingertips
106 The Card, Ribbon and Envelope
108 Facilis Descensus Averno
111 The Obedient Card
112 The Card Appearing on the Bottle
112 First Method
114 Second Method
115 The Card on the Table Edge
116 The Mysteries of the Zodiac
125 The Cards, Coins and Glass
125 First Method
126 Second Method
128 Third Method
130 The Halved Card
132 The Phoenix
133 The Lost Ace
135 Thought Foretold
136 The Pierced Card
138 The Card Box
139 The Mechanical Card Box
141 The Brass Card Box
142 The New Brass Card Box
143 The Vanishing of Thought Cards
144 X Rays
144 First Method
144 Second Method
146 The Balanced Card
148 The Lightning Change
149 The Card Servante
151 Rapid Transit
151 The Cards and the Orange Tree
153 Card, Ring and Ribbon
155 The Conjurer's Prediction
157 Handkerchief and Card
158 Marvellous Coincidence
160 Grand Card Maneuvre
162 The New General Card
163 The Small Card Frame
163 First Method
165 Second Method
167 Grande Clairvoyance Mysterieuse
168 First Method
168 Second Method
169 Third Method
170 The Bridge of Cards
171 The Cards and Mirror
173 The Spirit Envelope
174 The Divination of Thought
177 Mnemonics Applied to Cards
180 The Acrobatic Cards
182 Singular Transposition
182 First Method
183 Second Method
184 Vice Versa
186 A Hypnotic Experiment
190 The Mysterious Hat
191 Mystic Divination
192 Predestination
194 The Flying and Obedient Card
195 The New Multiplication of Cards
198 Card and Egg Balance
200 The Fountain of Cards
202 The New Rising Cards from the Hand
204 Second Method
205 The Cards Rising Through the Air
207 The Excelsior Rising Cards
209 The Rising Cards and Tumbler
211 A Comedy of Errors
211 First Method
211 Second Method
213 Third Method
217 The Hand of Cagliostro

220 PREPARED AND MECHANICAL CARDS.
220 The Changing Card
223 The Unique Changing Card
225 The Diminishing Card
226 The Latest Diminishing Card
229 The Changing and Diminishing Card
230 The Changing and Enlarging Card
233 New Quadruple Changing Card
234 The Card and Rose
236 The Floral Card
238 The Penetrative Card
239 The Torn Corner Card
241 The Improved Torn Corner Card
243 The Flap Card
244 The Nonpareil Changing Card
246 Improved Nonpareil Changing Card
247 The Bottle Card
249 The Conjurer as Marksman
251 Moving Pip Card
254 A Mysterious Transformation
246 The New Ink Card
258 The Envelope Card
260 The Vanishing Pips
262 The Turning Card
263 The Reunited Card
265 The Card and Broken Mirror
267 The Coin Card
269 Eclipsed Pack of Cards
270 The Diminishing Cards
271 First Method
273 Second Method
274 Third Method
276 Fourth Method

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“Some general wear along with some fading, scuffing and age staining, Pages are clean and binding is sound.”

New Era Card Tricks was written specifically for magicians by Chicago magic dealer August Roterberg, unlike prior magic books which were published and written for the public.

New Era Card Tricks contains a number of mechanical card effects and gaffs reproduced from the German works of F. W. Conradi. The book introduced the term "Color Change" and gave an early explanation of the Double Lift. It was also the first book to provide a description of theBack Palm.

It may have been an influence or inspiration for S.W. Erdnase when writing Expert at the Card Table since some of the sleights are identical or provided inspiration for Erdnase.