This is a collectible and is not meant to be a performable trick. Here is the story behind it. Richard Himber convinced his friends who published the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine to gimmick the April 1951 issue to become a force book. If you add up the digits of any page number from the beginning of any story and count down to that word it will always be “problems.”

He didn’t tell anyone about the gaffed “real magazine” until much later when it became almost impossible to purchase a copy. In the meantime, he hoarded issues that he later released as the Thousand Dollar Challenge.

In addition to the actual magazine, he included a crib sheet you can glue on the back of a Reader’s Digest magazine which would allow you to do more mindreading feats with the Ellery Queen magazine.

I managed to get a small supply of the original magazines and an even smaller supply of the original crib sheets. The instructions that are included are photocopies of the original.

I am offering two versions:
►Mag & Crib: Includes an original magazine, an original crib sheet, and a photocopy of the instructions.
►Mag Only: Includes an original magazine, a photocopy of the crib sheet, and a photocopy of the instructions.

Here is Himber’s original ad copy/description:
Once in a lifetime a trick is conceived which embodies all of the features that make a magic trick successful. This we feel, is it! Through the courtesy and cooperation of the Mercury Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen and Fred Dannay (all connected with Mercury Mystery Magazine) we were able to print a magazine that will send the average mentalist into ecstatic raptures. With this magazine you can make a prediction a week or so in advance and then read a spectator’s mind the night you perform on television, radio or the stage.

All versions get an original, and collectible, copy of the gaffed April 1951 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

NOTE: The magazines are around 70 years old, and the pages have yellowed from age. Although the binding is in good shape it will not hold up to use. I would not recommend you perform this trick. This is being sold as a collectible.