Ultissimo by Tannen’s, Paul Curry

Ultissimo was first built by Merv Taylor c. 1946 for Thayer Quality Magic. devised by Maury Kains, based upon Paul Curry’s amazing Touch.  Paul Curry was not credited by Maury Kains, and Mr. Kains did make some improvements, but the method and basic effect is clearly derived from Touch c. 1937. Here is Paul Curry talking about this in his own words:

If the Guinness record book had been around I probably would have made it back in my early teens when I got an idea for my first commercial trick. It was stolen by FOUR different people inside of six months. It was called “Touch” and called for a full deck of double-facers. Fox Lake cards had just come out and Max Holden had speculated one day on what a full deck of double-facers could be used for. I explained my idea to Max in his store one day, where it was overheard by a fellow magician who hot-footed it up to Grant’s Magic Shop (also on 42nd St.), passed it off as his own and Grant bought it from him.

“I had two versions, one with black-backed cards, which Holden didn’t like because it called attention to the cards. Needless to say, Holden no sooner had the trick out when someone else brought out the blank-backed version. Then another magician peddled it as ‘his own’ because he .included a stand to hold the cards. You can still find it in some catalogs as “Ultissimo”.

Finally, a wealthy ex-auto dealer sold the original version to a magic company in Germany using his name as the inventor!” Curry followed with the non-‘family magazine comment referred to at the beginning of this column and concluded with, “Oh well, twas ever thus”. It’s nice to know, though, that every so often someone will go out of his way to keep the records straight.

Thanks again,

Paul Curry
(Genii Magazine, February, 1983, pg 123)

This version was released by Tannen’s and it worked surprisingly well in black pastic and a clear Lucite swivel base..

Effect: The last word in mental card effects! Two spectators are each asked to merely THINK of a card – one black, one red. You show a blank card and then write on it your impression of one of the spectator’s mentally selected cards. Your card is placed with its back toward the audience into a lustrous lucite rack. You do the same for the card thought of by the second spectator. Now you exhibit a full deck and ask the spectators to name their cards. These are withdrawn from the deck and placed into the rack next to your predictions. Slowly you reverse the rack and show that your two predictions match the spectators’ thoughts.

No sleights, forces, switches.

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