Easy Coin Tricks for Free
Knowing a few easy magic tricks is one of the easiest ways to impress family and friends. Being able to perform amazing magic with everyday items, or perform easy mind reading using just a pen and part instead of strange magic props, is about as close to real magic as you can get. Join us as we expose the secrets to easy coin tricks for free.
Why should you learn coin tricks? Especially when beginner magicians generally perform easy card magic tricks. Well, unless you’re playing one of the best card games or one of the top drinking games at a party, the average person doesn’t typically have playing cards on them. But, almost everyone has access to coins.
It’s super incredible to do close up magic tricks with an object that can be borrowed from a friend. They will freak out and think you’re the next David Blaine, Dynamo, Justin Willman, Shin Lim or Michael Carbonaro.
Vanishing Inc. is the world’s biggest magic store. And our team of professional magicians has chosen the coolest, easy to learn coin tricks for kids and adults alike. These are guaranteed to get huge reactions and make you the life of the party. So, keep reading and let’s learn easy coin tricks for free.
Easy Coin Tricks for Free
Pull a Coin From Someone’s Ear
This is an easy magic trick with coins that every magician should learn. In fact, many professional magicians say it’s the first magic trick they ever saw. The magic trick that made them want to become magicians. That's because pulling money out of thin air feels like true magic.
To get started, you’ll need to learn a very easy beginner coin magic sleight of hand move. It’s called the Finger Palm and it allows you secretly hide a coin out of sight from your audience
Start with a coin in your dominant hand. It should rest across the bottom joints of your middle fingers (photo A).
Slightly curl your fingers in and squeeze gently around the coin. You’re not making a fist here. Just enough pressure to keep the coin from falling out of your hand when you turn it palm down (photo B).
Rest your hand naturally down by your side or on the table.
How to Make a Coin Appear out of Thin Air
Reach the hand holding the coin in Finger Palm toward your volunteer. Point toward their ear as you reach behind it (photo C). This makes the coin easier to grip and gives a natural reason to curl your hands.
Maintain eye contact with your volunteer until your hand crosses out of their peripheral vision. As soon as it does, straighten out our fingertips. At the same time, push the coin toward the ends of your fingers (photo D).
Slowly bring your hand back into their view with the coin cleanly displayed at the fingertips. All these steps happen in a just a matter of seconds, and should be done in one fluid motion.
Learn Coin Magic Like a Professional Magician
This is one of the best close up magic and street magic tricks to do off-the-cuff (also known as “impromptu magic). The element of surprise is an important part of all magic tricks, especially this one. Don’t tell them what you’re about to do. Just give them a bit of a confused look and then reach back and grab the coin from “behind their ear”.
You can also easily practice the finger palm wherever you go. Just take a coin with you and hold it in this position. Before you know it, you’ll master this coin magic sleight of hand. It will feel so natural, you may even forget you’re even holding a coin.
Learn How to Vanish a Coin
Making an object disappear is quite possibly one of the most powerful magic tricks you can perform. It’s easier to learn than you might think too. Just grab a coin and follow the steps below to learn how to make a coin disappear.
While sitting at a table for game night or a dinner party, ask to borrow a coin from someone (let’s say you receive a penny).
Tell everyone that you’ve been learning magic tricks and want to show them your favorite coin trick. You’re going to take the penny you received and transform it into a quarter. (This is actually all just a bit of acting that will help hide the secret later on).
Pick up the coin with your dominant hand and then rest your other elbow on the table. This tabled arm is tilted back slightly with the hand in a fist. Rest your chin on this arm slightly below the fist.
Slide the coin toward the edge of the table, pick it up and begin rubbing it on your elbow quickly for a couple seconds. “Accidentally” lose control of the coin and let it drop to the table. Do your best to act very confused that it didn’t work. Relax both arms, pick up the coin and repeat the process again. Failing twice at first will ultimately help sell the real magic later on.
After “failing” twice, the audience will start to relax. Take advantage of this by going to pick up the coin. But, this time, instead of actually grabbing it, you’ll let it slide off the end of the table and into your other hand resting on your lap.
Keep your dominant hand moving upward as if the coin was grabbed. Look intently at this hand and your audience will naturally follow your eyes. When practicing this move, try actually picking up the coin a few times. Take notice of how your hand moves. Then, when going for the secret move, do your best to move your hand the exact same way as you did when actually picking up the coin.
The other hand (which now secretly holds the coin in finger palm) is put back into position with your elbow on the table and your chin resting right below the wrist.
These last two steps should be done in one fluid motion. Everything should look identical to when you “failed” the first two times. Now, you’ll repeat the rubbing the “coin into your elbow” motions from before.
Pull your dominant hand away to show that the coin has vanished. As you do this, and the audience is stunned, quickly release the coin from your other hand into the collar of your shirt. It will slide down your back and out of view.
Show both hands to be empty as you make a joke about being a better magician than you thought. It seems you made the coin disappear instead of transforming.
BONUS: Learn the French Drop Coin Vanish
Don’t have a table nearby? No problem, you can also make a coin vanish in your hands with the French Drop. The French Drop is one of the most important sleight of hand moves for beginner magicians to learn. It will take a tiny bit of practice, but is well worth the effort. This versatile sleight of hand can be used in so many different magic tricks and coin tricks.
Get Your Free French Drop Tutorial
Read Minds with Coins
Want to learn how to read minds or perform mentalism tricks like Derren Brown? Well, you’ll love this easy coin trick. It requires no sleight of hand and can be learned in less than a minute. It’s a super easy mentalism trick and perfect party trick that allows you to predict the future.
You’ll need three different coins or bills for this (i.e quarter, nickel & penny or $1, $10 and $20). Alternatively, if you have three of the same coins with different production years, that could work. Or you could label them with a sharpie as A, B and C.
Write down one of the coins as a prediction (we will use the quarter for this example). Even better, you could text your prediction to a friend, post it to your Instagram Story or make a TikTok announcing your prediction. How you want to prove you knew exactly what choice they’d eventually make comes down to your creativity.
Put all the coins in a row on the table. You’ll now perform the Magician’s Choice (sometime known as Equivoque). Essentially, you’re going to sneakily guide or force your volunteer to choose the coin or bill you predicted by using clever and vague wording.
Tell your friend to cover two of the coins with their hands and slide them toward you. It’s important to say “slide” or “push” here.
If they slide the two coins you didn’t predict (nickel and penny), this is the best possible outcome. You just need to rewrite history a little before revealing your prediction. This is a very common mentalism technique like cold reading.
Emphasize how they chose to eliminate the nickel and penny, leaving them to keep the quarter. Show that your prediction perfectly matches. Note how we said “slide” the first time, but changed it to “eliminate” the second time.
If your prediction is among the two slid toward you (i.e. penny and quarter), this is where the sneaky wording comes in. Immediately ask them to pick up these coins. As they do, just casually push aside the remaining coin on the table (nickel) and mention how that one has been “eliminated.”
Now ask them to “give” you one of the coins they’re holding (note how “give” is a very vague word).
If they hand you the penny, say “Great, we’ll eliminate this one too, leaving you with one coin” (the quarter). Proceed to revealing your prediction.
If they give you the quarter, say “Great, you’ve selected to keep the quarter.” You can then instruct them to eliminate the one left in their hand (penny) and put it alongside the other coin the table. Proceed to revealing your prediction.
Learn How to Read Minds Like a Pro
Magician’s Choice is a basic mentalism technique that’s easy to learn. But, you will need to practice each potential outcome a few times. It’s very important that everything flows naturally, because the key to this mind reading trick is that the audience doesn’t know what to expect. It will be well worth your effort too since the Magician’s Choice and Equivoque can be used in a variety of different magic tricks.
Learn More Easy Mentalism Tricks
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The Vanishing Inc. magic store is the top place professional magicians buy magic tricks. We have so many magic tricks for sale, it can be slightly overwhelming.
Don’t worry though, we have a ton of free resources and magic tricks for beginner to help you get started. Make sure to check out these other helpful guides for learning magic:
