Best Card Magicians Ever

SEE ALSO: BEST Card Tricks!
SEE ALSO: BEST Magicians Ever

ALSO: BEST Card Tricks!
ALSO: BEST Magicians Ever

Rating the greatest card magicians of all time is a HERCULEAN task. Of course, we all have different tastes and preferences but we hope this list exposes you to new performers that you may not have heard of. Or you can write us and offer your suggestions, we are more than happy to improve this list based on your input. However, our criteria for this list is for magical card entertainers, we're not looking at card influencers, scholars, mechanics, historians, finger flickers, or other branches of card magic. This is our list of the best magicians to entertain with a deck of playing cards. Read on...

The 10 Greatest Card Magicians of All Time

by Roland Sarlot

Magic with playing cards is as old as playing cards have been around. However, a bit more than 100 years ago, this branch of magic began to grow with two significant events: Hofzinser performing around 1850 and S.W. Erdnase's book in 1902. From that time until today, it has exploded. Here are the most influential card magicians and their approximate decades of influence:

• The Hofzinser Era (1860s-1900s)
• The Erdnase Era (1900s-1920s)
• The Annemann Era (1920s-1940s)
• The Hugard Era (1940s-1950s)
• The Vernon Era (1960s)
• The Marlo Era (1970s)
• The Jennings Era (1980s-1990s)
• The Tamariz Era (1990s-2000s)
• The Paul Harris Era (2000s-2010s)
• The Internet Era (2010s to 2020s)

Looking back over this history, this is our list of the most entertaining card magicians ever. Crank up your video volume and enjoy these masters...

Notable Mention

• Richard Turner

  (1954-)

  Ready to get your pants, skirt, or kimono fooled off? Richard Turner is an obsessive card manipulator and unrelenting hard-worker constantly searching for better and better card skills. There is also a recent autobiographical movie on his life called Dealt but enjoy his performance on Penn and Teller's Fool Us.

• Helder Guimarães

  (1982-)

  Guimarães is from Portugal, but has worked his way up the magical ladder to become world renowned. Instead of the usual places you might find magicians plying their trade like casinos, restaurants, and hotels, Helder is best known for his work in theatrical productions. These include Verso, Nothing to Hide and his most recent, Invisible Tango. Even the names of his shows are hip! He is not only a master at sleight of hand but elevates storytelling to a high art. TED Talks says he "slips and slides cards on a table, wowing you with invisible technique, unorthodox psychology and fresh humor". Check out his cool, artsy promo video!

• Dani DaOrtiz

  (1980-)

  Inspired by the magical brilliance of Juan Tamariz, Dani also comes from Spain and grew up watching Tamariz on television. Dani eats, sleeps, and drinks magic... card magic that is. He writes books, edits a magic magazine, and creates DVDs and special decks for purchase. Watch this video and learn what Dani has to offer... a card master sharing his love of the art with others.

• Lennart Greene

  (1941-)

  Swedish world champion and close-up card magician, Lennart Greene is a study in contrasts: a brilliant and creative card inventor who acts like a bumbling scientist. In fact, isn't that partly the reason his magic is so strong? Dropping cards, forgetting basic words, and the thick glasses create a false sense that you understand the man. You don't; he's twenty steps ahead AND he's doing it in a foreign language! Here's a long TED talk to let you journey into his magical web.

The 10 BEST Card Magicians of All Time

• 10. Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser

  (1806-1875)

  

  Hofzinser is the only person on this list that we have not personally watched and there are no videos of him performing. (He died before the invention of film.) So why is he on this list? What Paganini was to the violin, Hofzinser was to playing cards. He was a virtuoso! He invented basic playing card magic techniques that bare his name today and also invented many classic tricks, however, this list recognizes only entertaining performers. "How the heck do we know he was a GREAT performer," you ask? Well, not only was he world famous in his era for performing with just playing cards and charged exorbitant entrance fees to watch him but many of the world's great magicians flocked to Vienna to watch and learn from him. Hofzinser was THE master card magician of his era!

• 9. Richard Valentine Pitchford

  (1868-1941)

  Young Richard practiced card manipulation outdoors in the freezing trenches of World War I. For a bit of protection from the ravaging weather, he wore gloves. After the war, he spent months in the hospital and kept practicing to keep his spirits up. These massive hours of practice helped him build his card manipulation act. He later changed his name for the stage to Cardini and when television hit, he was a massive star. He played a character of an inebriated gentleman (finally a magician with a reason to wear a tux and gloves!) where cards and other objects would seem to appear and disappear through his drunken stupor. The young bellboy that assisted him was his wife.

• 8. Hector Mancha

  Many of the performers on this list have been chosen by their body of work. The ones with more than just a great act have been awarded with a higher ranking. This Spanish magician wins a spot on this list for the sheer power of this one act. In this case, playing cards have been printed to look like money (manufactured by a magic playing card company) so from a magic perspective, they're still playing cards! Sit down, move the cat off your lap, learn forward, and pay attention to the new techniques and artistic presentation of Hector Mancha.

• 7. Shin Lim

  (1992-)

  Shin Lim is the youngest card performer on this list and the only one to belong to the new internet era of magic. This type of magic opens a completely new direction where the audience's attention can be directed by camera cuts and zooms. You may not fool the assistants at the table but millions of viewers worldwide will be amazed. If you don't want to see the background on him in the video above, jump to minute 1:00. Shin Lim is the 2018 winner of America's Got Talent and now has his own Vegas magic show. Who said audiences don't like card tricks?

  SEE SHIN LIM LIVE HERE!

• 6. An Ha Lim

  Watch this video and imagine how we can only be on number 6 of this list so far! Poor old Cardini can't even imagine what is being done here. An Ha Lim of South Korean has taken the playing card manipulation act to a new level of excellence and busted open Korean card magic to the world! This is an exciting act with great music and builds every time to a well-deserved standing ovation.

• 5. Ricky Jay

  (1948-2018)

  Ricky Jay was a writer, historian, actor, and all-around eccentric. (You're welcome Ricky!) However, this list is about card magicians that entertain and Ricky has been on television or film almost continually since his college days at Cornell University. He started in the hippy clubs of New York, to national television, Doug Henning specials (see our greatest magicians ever list), weekly radio shows, national tours, and Hollywood movies usually playing a card cheat, magician, or back-alley character. Ricky is synonymous with American close-up card magic.

• 4. Bill Malone

  (1959-)

  Known as a magician's magician, Bill is not a household name but has had many TV appearances over the years. (Jump to 1:40 on the video and lose the snooze.) Bill owned a bar at a golf course in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and performed at high-end client's private events. Bill has made many DVDs for magicians -teaching his tricks and techniques and one of the few "card teachers" that's highly entertaining.

• 3. René Lavand

  (1928-2015)

  The dramatic artistry of Lavand is most pronounced in his native Spanish which there are countless youtube videos. Finding him in English is a bit more difficult, so we bring you a video with an English interpreter. Having only one arm for card magic is astounding but what sets Lavand apart is the theatricality he brings to the close-up stage. No easy comedy here. It's excellent cardistry (with all one-handed technique he had to discover himself) and a life-long passion for the beauty of card magic.

• 2. Jimmy Grippo

  (1898-1992)

  Although a few appearances on the top TV talk shows of the era, Jimmy Grippo was NOT well-know to the public... unless you were a high-roller gambler at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Jimmy specialized in up-close magic at your table. (We're talking when Vegas was in its heyday!) He performed for royalty, millionaires, at Caesars, and around the world for heads of state. A master of his mythology and a master of his audience (I love how he goes slow and makes you REALLY want to watch him), Jimmy didn't have to apply his technical prowess to his card magic, he provided intimate theater and private miracles to be one of the greatest of all time.

• 1. Juan Tamariz

  (1942-)

  (Dim lights, drumroll please...) Yes, he's wacky, off-the-wall, plays air violin, and you wouldn't believe he's accomplished at all but we have voted Tamariz the best card magician of all time. Underneath the facade of craziness lives a playing card magical genius who has been on television consistently all over the Spanish-speaking world for decades. In fact, mention his name to a Spaniard or South American over the age of 30 and you have a 90% chance they have watched him. For the English speaker, there are not a lot of videos, so we are also including a clip on Spanish television. If you want to skip a bit of silly "entertainment" at the beginning, jump to 2:30. This trick is one of his inventions and used today to close a top NYC magic show in his high-end parlor show. Congratulations Juan Tamariz!

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How did we do? Did your favorite magician make the list? There are so many amazing card performers who make magic such a rich and vibrant art that didn't make our list. Should we have included Max Malini, Dai Vernon, Johnny Thompson, Michael Close, Derek Dingle, Larry Jennings, S.W. Erdnase, John Scarne, Eddie Fechter, Arturo Ascanio, Luis Piedrahita, Allan Ackerman, Bert Allerton? We would love to hear who would be on your top ten list to create the best magic tricks with a deck of cards ever!

If the card magic "bug" has bitten you, check out our pages to learn card magic and maybe one day you just might be on this list, too!

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