I am a big fan of Jack Yates's magical creations, though he is not very well known among magicians. (Certainly not as well-known as he should be). Those magi who have discovered any of his books probably are also fans like I am.
In this 8-page booklet, Yates details the full deck set-up that Yates created "at the request of a South African mentalist". (I am guessing that was Basil Horwitz). After the deck is set in order, any of the 52 cards can be named, and the mentalist/magician knows the position of the card in the pack (calculated using a fairly simple formula).
Yates gives a number of ideas on how to use the deck, which are okay, but I think you will find better ways to amaze your audience once you are adept at using the set-up. A few of the ways I use Jack's Pack:
1. demonstration of super-memory, by scanning the faces of an apparently shuffled deck, and then someone calls a card out (say the 10H), I tell them it is at the 33rd position from the top. Then I tell the positions of the other three tens!
2. an absolutely killer ACAAN routine (which I include in my supplemental instructions) -- one spectator names any card, another names a number, the card is at that number. Do this at your next magic club meeting, but never reveal how you did it -- the other magi will go bonkers trying to figure it out.
3. combine with your invisible deck. hand the spectator a deck (the Jacks Pack) and ask for her to name a number from 1-52. Take your invisible pack, and spread through it showing that one card is reversed. She counts down to her number in the pack she holds, and looks at the card. It matches the card you reversed in your pack.
Obviously with any set-up deck, the ease or difficulty of the formula is what makes or breaks it. In the case of Jack's Pack, there is a slightly different formula for each suit. I found that the formulae could be simplified, and so I will include an extra 2-page supplement that describes my own (even easier) way to get the position of any named card.
You can also have a number named, and know which card is there -- Yates teaches his method for this, and my supplement teaches my (even easier) formula for this.
A great little booklet. New-old dealer inventory, so like new and unused, even though it is 40+ years old.
