“Various devices have been employed called ‘hold-outs,’ mechanical contrivances concealed in the sleeve or vest which by a very slight pressure or movement in one direction, will instantly shoot out a card into the gambler’s hand and recede again into the sleeve. One of the most ingenious and perfect of these was invented by a gambler named Keplinger (‘the Lucky Dutchman’), and has ever since been known as the Keplinger ‘hold-out.’ The apparatus was worked by the knees, so that no motion of the arms or body was necessary.”
—Scientific American, April 1910
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