Jo-Anne’s Country Cousin by Warren Hamilton

There have been many versions of the Card Duck over the years. It was invented by Laurie Ireland and marketed by him as Otto, The Automaton Duck.

Warren Hamilton’s Jo-Anne – The Improved Card Duck has been the Card Duck standard for many years. The paint job is amazing and the mechanism to pick the ducks is consistent and reliable.

Warren created three main versions of his duck:

• The Original Jo-Anne (c. 1946)
• Senator Crandall’s Gwendolyn Card Picking Duck  – the big difference with this version was that the feed box detached which was a key part in The Senator’s routine.  (c. 1951)
• Jo-Anne’s Country Cousin (featured on this page) (c. 1963)

The main differences with the original and The Cousin are:

• Bright colored paint-job with much brighter and bolder eyes and lashes 🙂
• Beautiful looking straw hat with metal clip so the hat does not fall off.
• Small colored egg release on the base with lever to keep them in place until you are ready.

Otherwise the actual card picking mechanism is basically the same.  Though I will say this Cousin is probably the most reliable duck I have ever tried.  In tests I picked up twenty cards one after the other without a single skip or miss.  That is one reliable duck 🙂

You can see a side to side comparison with Jo-Anne in the last two photos after the adverts.

Performing Dickie and Jo-Anne for over forty years has helped me realize that it really doesn’t really matter what the prop looks like as most of the magic emanates from the performer. It does help if the duck can actually pick the cards smoothly on queue, but most of the other tweaks and improvements pale when compared with a solid routine and a charismatic performance.

This is true for most magic effects and why the best performers have relatively few actual effects in their repertoire because the audience wants to see the person perform almost regardless of what effect they actually perform.

That being said how could anyone not fall in love with Jo-Anne’s Country Cousin? 🙂

Includes:

• The Country Cousin.
• Fitted Hat with removable flower braid (the hat is a replacement but it looks perfect).
• Three small colored eggs that can be delivered secretly any time during the routine (bonus).
• Modern Feel Jerry’s Nuggets Deck (bonus).
• Copy of the original Jo-Anne instructions.

Effect: One, two, or three cards are selected (no forcing) and returned to deck. Cards are placed in Jo-Anne’s feed-box. With unerring accuracy the smartest little duck in the world picks out the chosen cards. She can even do it blindfolded! Easy to work . . . if you can pull a lever, Jo-Anne will do the rest.

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