The Slip Force depends on the mechanics of a much older, forgotten color change, which used the slip mechanism to cause one card to change openly into another. This appeared in the unpublished MSS III, 18, also called “the Asti Manuscript”, c. 1700, p. 51 of the Pieper translation. The manuscript was translated in Gibecière, Vol. 8 No. 1, Winter 2013, p. 29-234. The same application later hit the printed page in Edme-Gilles Guyot's Nouvelles Récréations Physiques et Mathématiques, 1769, p. 33 of the unpublished Hugard translation.

The force force application appears to be a twentieth-century creation. It appeared as “The 'Slip' Force” in Ellis Stanyon's Magic, Vol. 13 No. 3, Dec. 1912, p. 20, as a knife stabbing force. Stanyon didn't cite a source for the sleight. One month later on the other side of the Atlantic, Val Evans claimed credit for the move in “The Slip Up To Date” in The Sphinx, Vol. 11 No. 11, Jan. 1913, p. 221.

Victor Farelli described it as a Riffle Force instead of a stabbing force in “A Clean Slip” Farelli's Card Magic - Part Two, 1933, p. 64. He wrote: “I think it was originated by Mr. Leipzig”.

A modern handling, commonly attributed to Gary Kurtz, due to its appearance in Unexplainable Acts, 1990, p. 26, has the same mechanics developed and published by Marc Delahousse in M-U-M, Vol. 67 No. 8, Jan. 1978, p. 34, “Forcing a Card on the Slide”.

Doing the slip one-handed, while sliding out the top half onto another surface, was described by Eddie Joseph in How Gambler's Win, 1941, p. 4. It also appeared as “The One-Handed Riffle Force” in T. Page Wright's posthumously published Page Wright's Manuscript, 1991 (written ca. 1929), p. 96.

A handling in which the upper portion is flipped over face down while it slides out was contributed by Bruce Cervon as “Flip Over Force” to Genii, Vol. 36 No. 5, May 1972, p. 229.