Before launching into a review of The Ron Bauer Private Study Series, I should first out myself: I've been a closet Ron Bauer fan for years. My only confidant in this secret admiration society is California card whiz Steven Youell, who also admires Bauer's work and who once sent me a corrected set of drawings from one of Ron's published tricks. My primary source for Bauer magic has been Charlie Miller's "Magicana" series in Genii, where Bauer tackled such items as the Ovette Master Move, the Two Card Turnover, the Dunbury Delusion, Spirits (a ghostly pencil in bottle routine), The Clones from Brazil, and the Screened Leipzig Pass. Bauer has also published in The New Tops, with four of those items showing up in John Luka's new book, L.I.N.T..

The Ron Bauer Private Study Series is a sequence of nine monographs or booklets, each covering in detail a single magic trick. They rise to the standard set in Ron Bauer's previously published efforts, of squeaky clean mechanics and thoroughly worked out, entertaining presentations. A big factor in my enjoyment of Mr. Bauer's tricks is that they have always been charmingly illustrated by Sandra Kort, whose work has also graced Stephen Minch's Spectacle and Paul Harris's A Close-up Kinda Guy. Happily, this tradition continues in this new series.

Each item contains not only the trick itself but the complete patter, always tending toward a closing tag line. Most of the items contain an essay on some important magic topic that the trick embodies, with occasional references to how the other tricks also use the principle. A quick look at the nine tricks:

1. Gadabout Coins Revisited. The Gadabout Coins is a "two in the hand, one in the pocket" routine that Ron Bauer has been working on since 1952. The patter rationalizes the use of half dollars, and the essay on repetition teaches how to educate audiences into accepting deceptive moves.

2. Sudden Death Gypsy Curse. This is Ron Bauer's handling of the familiar Peter Kane effect. There are some very clean displays, with all the cards seemingly shown front and back. You can purchase a set of the necessary cards for an additional $7.50, but I liked the effect enough to send off $20 (plus a lot of postage, insurance, and triple-checked packaging expenses) to Jeff Busby for Peter Kane's beautiful antique playing cards, in an effect called "Hungarian Guessing Game." Bauer's routine is great, the Kane-Busby cards are great, and it's an effect you should enjoy doing.

3. Tony Chaudhuri's Cross to the Feminine Side. The essay in this one covers the importance of tag lines. The effect is a small-packet "Out of this World," very clean and deceptive, and self-working to boot. The patter centers around exploiting a male spectator's feminine intuition, an approach I think has the danger of becoming sexist. My own preference is to use the effect to gauge how lucky the spectator is at cards, ending with the line, "I don't think I've ever met anyone this lucky at cards. I hope you don't have any hopes of being lucky at love!"

4. Butch, Ringo, & the Sheep. This is an interesting and enjoyable combination of "Thieves and Sheep" and "Han Ping Chien," conducted with seven quarters and a finger ring. The advice essay is on borrowing items. The cheating that goes on in the "Thieves and Sheep" portion make this one a great deal of fun to perform.

5. Horn-Swoggled Again. This is a short-change routine with bills, based on an item in My Best. The essay is on casual handling, and the tag line is worth the price of admission. It's a cool effect that might just make them wonder what a magician could do if he could do real magic.

6. Ode to Poker Dan. The premise is that of a gambler outwitting the magicians in a Magic Castle poker game. The magicians deal the fellow a poker hand of all backs, which he transformsinto five aces. I liked the premise and the fact that the tale is told via a poem. The poem could be touched up a bit, which should be easy for you, a case of an actor touching up his lines. The bonus essay is on justifying small packet usage.

7. Dixie. This is the longest routine in the series, a cups and balls routine , a tale of the Old South played out with crumpled Confederate bills and Dixie cups. The final load is an artificial cotton boll, whatever that is. I've never seen one, and wouldn't know the difference between a real and a fake one. (I am reminded of the first -- and last -- time I attempted to perform Don Alan's Lump of Coal Production in California. Everyone looked at it and said, "What is that?") It's easy enough to substitute other objects at your pleasure. The routine incorporates a gimmick Bauer calls a 2X, new to me and advantageous to cups and balls work. The essay is on a most useful ploy the author calls The En Route Principle.

8. The Cursed Ring. This is a ring off wand effect played as a "cursed ring that jumps back to your finger." Bauer has been performing this effect since at least 1960. If I were to do this, I think I'd keep Bauer's plot, but switch the routine to a ring off rope routine rather than a ring off wand. This would allow using Ray Grismer's excellent "show" just before the ring travels, something one can't do with a wand.

9. Fair & Sloppy. This routine shows off what I think is Bauer's greatest talent, that of carefully analyzing and refining "commonly known" sleights until they are perfect. The routine is a combination of Marlo's Convincing Control with Sid Lorraine's Slop Shuffle, with a nice delayed revelation of the reversed card at the end. The essay is on sleight of hand with cards.

I must address the packaging. Each of the booklets is a soft-cover 5 1/2 by 8 1/2-inch monograph, running from 8 to 20 pages. They are attractively rendered, and all are delightfully illustrated by Sandra Kort. I was reminded of single-item magic tricks that I first began buying in the early seventies, from the likes of Albert Goshman and Ray Grismer. The covers amusingly charge an "insignificant ten bucks," a "trifling ten bucks," a "shockingly meager ten bucks," and so on. (All are ten dollars. You can pay an extra $7.50 to get the necessary Gypsy Curse cards.) Unfortunately, there are nine tricks in this series already, with another fifteen projected, which adds up to something not so insignificant, trifling, or meager. It stretches the limits of fandom to expect the typical reader to shell out 240 bucks for 24 tricks, about the number you would find in a typical book by one of the Big Three publishers today, in an attractive hardback for about 40 dollars. Beginning in the early eighties, Richard Kaufman spoiled me in regard to how I like to see magical instruction packaged, and I hope to one day see not only these 24 items, but all of Ron Bauer's work in one large coffee-table volume, filled with great magic and Sandra Kort illustrations. Until then, it seems that the author and publisher are targeting readers who will want to avail themselves of Ron Bauer's thinking on specific tricks and routines as opposed to sampling the entire oeuvre.

Marketing considerations aside, the nine routines add up to a most enjoyable set of magic, one that anyone could make a reputation with given ample practice and rehearsal. There are four card tricks (all quite varied), two coin tricks, one with bills, and a ring-off-wand and cups and balls routine. My own bias is always for card tricks, and if you're debating over which of the routines to drop a ten spot on, I'd suggest that you can't go wrong with any of the card tricks. The fifteen items waiting in the pipeline include Charlie Millers' Left-Handed Hank, The Mechanical Deck, Paul Chosse's Bar Bill Stunt, Senator Crandall's Cut-Up Card Trick, Four Silk Scarves and the Knot, The Siamese Goose Egg Bag, Marlo's Time Machine, Second Finger Top Deal, Xerox Money, Kort's Sure-Fire Think of a Card, That's the Spirit!, Brother Hamman's Final(ly) Aces!, Jim Bergstrom's Hat Trick, John Luka's Michigan Monte, and Don Alan's Sneaky Nudist Rides Again.