Where Coins Come From
By Luke Jermay - Friday, July 10, 2020
“Have you ever seen a magician pull a coin from a child’s ear?" The spectator nods and the performer continues: "Did you ever wonder where it came from? As an intelligent adult. 0you know a magician is not conjuring a real coin from thin air! With the millions of magicians pulling millions of coins from millions of children ears every single day, by now the economy would have been destroyed! We would have experienced hyper inflation like never before! Where the coin really comes from it less impressive… and I will tell you the secret, as long as you promise not to tell anyone else! Have you ever reached into your pocket being certain their was some change in there and when you took it out there was less than you thought?"
The spectator confirms this has happened. The performer continues: “You didn’t lose it… you lent it to a magician so he could pull from behind a child’s ear and make them smile!”
The performer reaches behind the spectator's ear and pulls a coin from behind it. He then smiles and continues: “But it was only a loan… it was borrowed by a magician not a banker… so you do get it back…”
As he talks, the performer removes a marker pen and draws a smiling face on the coin in his hand. He continues: “Its universal rule of the magicians' code that all borrowed coins be returned… have you ever taken a pair of jeans out of the draw and put your hand in your pocket to find a coin you didn’t put there?” The spectator confirms this has happened to them. “That was a grateful magician returning your loan…”
The magicians causes the coin, with the smiling face to vanish. He points to the spectator's pocket. The spectator reaches inside and finds among their change the coin, complete with the smiling face drawn on it. The magician concludes: “Do not tell anyone that I told you the secret!”
Method
This is a very simple, but charming effect. You will need to load a coin, with a smiling face drawn on it, into the pocket of a spectator you intend to perform the effect for. Ideally this should happen well in advance of the performance of the effect itself. Opportunity and observation will be your guide to exactly when this should happen. It would be possible to load the coin into someone's pocket under the guise of some other effect (for example, in which you place a card into the spectator's pocket and at the same time, secretly add the coin along with it). However, the best result will be obtained with bold bravery. Simply ‘put pocketing’ the coin into the spectator's pocket. It is hard to describe how and when to do this, as no single circumstance will ever exist. Instead. you will have to use your own intuition. An excellent opportunity is presented in casual settings when you pay for something at the same time as your friend, for example at a coffee shop; you can absent-mindedly take their change in your hand, adding the coin with the smiling face pre-dawn, to the change which you then immediately return. There is no need to even mention this, just do it and the spectator will forget it. If you regularly attend the same coffee shop, charm the servers to become secret accomplices by providing them with a collection of coins with smiling faces drawn on them, to feed into the hands of those people you come to the coffee shop with.
In performance, finger palm a duplicate coin and produce it from the spectator's ear, taking advantage of the excellent Ramsay subtly in doing so. Now draw a matching smiling face, as close to the one you drew secretly on the duplicate coin loaded into the spectators pocket, and then cause the coin to vanish using your most convincing false transfer. Time these actions to the words for an enchanting and simple piece of magic.
Back to blog homepage
Similar posts on the blog:
