Magical Masterpieces by Louis Nikola

The most famous invention of Nikola is his card system, which is described in The Nikola Card System and in an abbreviated version in Encyclopedia of Card Tricks. Cards are not the only area Nikola excelled in.

From the inside cover: Magical Masterpieces is no mere fanciful title. It is an apt description of a selection from the accumulated repertoire of a practical magician whose outstanding characteristic is the painstaking perfection and stamp of individuality of all his productions. It is safe to say that if a new book of magic provides only one workable and suitable addition to the reader's store it is a sound investment. The magician who cannot find many more than one acceptable item herein must indeed be hard to please. A wealth of valuable material is offered. This is not a book for idle reading alone, although even as such it is an entertainment in itself. It is a book for reading and reading again and oft repeated reference. It is a store-house of ideas to be placed in the magician's library and taken out from time to time for reference. Today he may find something for immediate addition to his programme. A year hence, two years hence, many years hence, he may still find something new. If he reads between the lines, he will not only absorb new ideas, he will learn something of the writer's secret of developing ideas and acquire habits of thought that will enable him to do likewise. Unhampered by confinement to a single type, the keynote of the volume is variety, and its contents range from subtle sleight-of-hand tricks without visible appliances to elaborate mechanical devices of extreme intricacy and some entirely new suggestions in the way of self-contained illusions.