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WalterBright

The deck of cards could be inserted by:

1. removing all the cards from the box

2. unfolding the box

3. rolling the box into a tube so it will fit into the bottle

4. unrolling and refolding the box in the bottle

5. roll each card, insert in bottle, unroll

6. put the cards back in the box

Of course, doing all this would be very tedious, and would be easier if one used some specialized tools, but it's doable.

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Basically, all of them look like some form of disassembly, insertion, and reassembly inside the bottle. Much like ship-in-a-bottle. Still impressive, though.

Pretty much very similar to the ship in a bottle hobby. But then you look at something like this and are just like, wait did this dude seriously just unsew a pair of loafers and resew them inside the bottle? Wow.

https://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/459/2465/320/bottle05.jp...

That padlock below the neck is killing me.

Insert a disassembled padlock (without the ear of the lock) thru the bottle neck, and reassemble it inside the bottle. Then, carefully hook the ear into the cork, and insert it into the bottle, then carefully attach the ear into one of the holes of the padlock.

Then fully insert the cork, and then use some shaking of the bottle to click the padlock into a locked position.

Or they just used magic.

Cork in two parts - one that you can push all the way through, put the lock on, and then pull out and connect the outer part.

(this also match the twine in the cork)

It reminds me of a quote from Teller:

"Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect."

Remember, it doesn't have to be a padlock, it just has to look like a padlock. The internals of it could be heavily modified to facilitate its assembly inside the bottle.

From an earlier comment:

> One unwritten rule with these things is that you can't "cheat". For example put an empty box of cards in the bottle and then fill it with sand. If it's a baseball, it's a baseball, not a balloon wrapped in leather.

But it doesn't have to functionally be a baseball, or a padlock. If it's a softened, ruined baseball with weak stitching that still counts. I'm pretty sure if you made a padlock with laminations held together by two halves of what would normally be a single riveted pin, that would count: or, you just make a hell of a rivet-seating machine that projects through a bottleneck, and do it for real. But the original functionality of the thing need not be preserved, necessarily. For instance, the metal might be weakened from bending and re-bending, but look normal.

I think there's retained functionality at least in the locking aspect - although, as you say, it might be weakened and not protective:

> "Find a piece of wood from the High Chaparral (Manginita wood). Drill Deck. Put case in bottle. Put cards in case. Put rope through deck. Tie knot. Put nut, bolt, and lock parts into bottle. Hold bolt with a magnet - screw nut on with dental floss. Assemble and lock padlock. Finally sign the pack of cards".

I notice that the padlocks generally have laminated steel bodies, and are not solid brass. Presumably the procedure is to remove the rivets in the body, separate the laminations and feed each one in separately, then reassemble everything inside?

If you look at this one. You'll notice there's not enough vertical room in the bottle to for both the box and a card to slide in from the top. The bottle would need to be twice as tall.

http://bottlemagic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Cards-in-B...

Once the box is in the bottle, waiting for cards, then they don't need to stack. The card will unfurl as it clears the neck, and enters the box.

I'm sure the 52nd card is harder than the 1st, but there's wiggle room there.

EDIT: Your photo shows a cellophane-wrapped box. I got nothing for that part!

Probably another excruciating step - cellophane goes in, box goes in and is put in the cellophane, then the cards, then the cellophane cover is sealed.

Irrespective of whether this is the case or not, I am blown away!

I'm thinking you have the carton flat inside the cellophane and insert both.

How about this? Carefully take the cellophane off the box without ripping it, or maybe just make a cut in the bottom. Then put the pack of cards in the box as above. Then put the cellophane through the bottle's neck and slide it back over the deck of cards.

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