Byron Walker's Magic Books

Rare Gambling Books
To order any item from this page, please contact Byron Walker at
byron.walker@comcast.net
510-276-1854
POB 3186
San Leandro, CA 94578
Business Hours: 9AM to Midnight - Pacific Time
The Life Of Mason Long, The Converted Gambler.  1883.  280 pages. Frontispiece portrait of the author plus 6 other woodcuts. Along with Jonathan Green, George Devol, and John Philip Quinn, this is the autobiography of one of the"reformed" gamblers of the 1880s.  The woodcut of the raid on Mason Long's Faro Room is different than in the 1887 edition.  Original decorative cloth.  $45The Poker Primer -or- How To Play Draw Poker by "The Major" 1913,  31 pages plus quaint ads for books, primarily on magic.  Good copy in superb pictorial wraps.  (The Lenny Schneir copy brought $77 in 1994) only  $20

The Life Of Mason Long, The Converted Gambler.  1887. Twelfth edition  280 pages. Frontispiece portrait of the author plus 6 other woodcuts. Along with Jonathan Green, George Devol, and John Philip Quinn, this is the autobiography of one of the"reformed" gamblers of the 1880s.  The woodcut of the raid on Mason Long's Faro Room is different than in the 1883 edition.  Original decorative cloth.  $45Micky MacDougall,  MacDougall on Dice and Cards.  1944 first edition.  90 pages.  Fine copy in good dust jacket, with sharping methods throughout.  $20
Dice Dexterity (or Dice Deceptions) by Audley Walsh. 1953, 32 pages. 34 illustrations. $5Card Sharpers Tricks Exposed! (Cover title)  Canfield's Expose is the text of the first four and last two pages, Modern Magic is the center section.  96 pages in pictorial wraps.  Front wrap chipped, otherwise very good.  (Canfield section is on card sharping, short change, swindles, crooked carnival games). $25

Bibliographies of Works on Playing Cards and Gaming.  1972.  This useful work reprints two important and scarce rare to bibliographies.  
1. A Bibliography of Works in English on Playing Cards and Gaming (Frederic Jessel, 1905), 311 pages.
2. A Bibliography of Card-Games and of The History of Playing Cards (Norton T. Horr, 1892), 79 pages.  
As new, in an attractive and sturdy hard binding.  $75
Rummy: That Noble Game by A.E. Coppard. 1932, The Golden Cockerel Press.  Limited to only 1000 copies, a fine press production.  A fine copy,  hard bound in Dust jacket.  $50
John Scarne, 10 Best Proposition Bets of America's Bigtime Gamblers.  1975, (2) + 19 pages, 8 1/2 x 11.  Probably self-published by Scarne in 1975.  First (and only) edition and suprisingly uncommon.  $25Roger Tilley, Playing Cards.  1973, London. 97 large square pages.  A lavishly illustrated, in color and black and white, history of playing cards, starting with their use in card sharping in 1591.  A fine copy.  hard bound in dust jacket.  $15
Poker:  A Guaranteed Income For Life by using the Advanced Concepts of Poker by Frank Wallace.  1968, 275 pages,  Hard bound.   How to win honestly or by cheating.  Fine Copy. $20Poker Demonstration by Tom Osborne. 1946, 16 pages.  Several fine copies at $2 each
Paul De Ketchiva, Confessions of a Croupier.  255 pages, frontispiece and seven other photographic plates, including a risque photo of Josephine Baker. Undated, probably 1920s.  Chapter VII includes swindling the house and "beautiful woman cheats."  Original red cloth, titles in gilt on spine.  Worn copy of a scarce gambling title.  $40How to Stack Dice for Fun & no $ by The Senator Crandall. 20 pages in pictorial wraps.  Illustrated.  Several mint copies at  $5 each
Although the cover title is 125 Tricks With Cards or Sleight of Hand, 5 pages (p60-64) are An Exposure of the Card Tricks Made Use of by Professional Card Players, Blacklegs and Gamblers.  The final section is a 1940 catalog of Johnson Smith & Co.  The card trick section also has marked cards, shiners, etc.  Original  pictorial wraps.  $25
The Gambler's Paradise by Joseph Ovette.  12 pages.  A gambling routine with a borrowed pack of cards.  Several fine copies available at $2 each.
Poker Deal by Harry Canar. 1958. 13 pages. Several fine copies at $2 each.The Raw, Rowdy World of Poker by Allen Dowling. 1973 First edition, Hard bound, Fine copy in very good dust jacket.  230 pages.  $25
Henry Chafetz, Play the Devil:  A History of  Gambling in America From 1492 to 1955.  1960.  Clarkson N. Potter first edition. 475 pages.  Fine copy, hard bound in dust jacket.  Along with Asbury's Sucker's Progress, one of the classic books on the history of gambling.  Extensive bibliography.  Informative chapter on Jonathan Green.  $30Robert-Houdin,  Card Sharpers:  Their tricks Exposed, or The Art of Always Winning.  No date. 158 pages in pictorial red, black and white stiff wraps.  A fine copy of this classic early work on cheating at cards.  $10
Michael MacDougall, Gamblers Don't Gamble.  1939 first edition.  166 pages, frontispiece and 16 other full page photographic plates of cheating methods.  A fine copy in original pictorial red cloth.  $25The Great American Pastime by Allen Dowling. 1970 First Edition, Hard Bound, Fine in Very Good dust jacket, 244 pages plus 16 pages of photographic plates. An excellent history of poker.  $25
John Scarne, The Odds Against Me. 1966 first edition.  537 pages plus 16 pages of photographs.  This is the expanded version, not just the 412 page The Amazing World of John Scarne. (1956 with no photos). Fine copy $25