Transparent Coin — Half Dollar
$22.99Beginner
← The effects
The Coin Vanish
A coin is held in plain sight, the hand closes, and when it opens the coin is gone — the first trick most coin magicians ever learn.
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- Performs
- Close-Up, Street, Walk-Around, Restaurant
- Type
- Vanish
What they see
The effect from the front
A borrowed coin is shown on the fingertips. One hand takes it and closes into a fist. A breath, a squeeze, and the hand opens slowly, finger by finger. It is empty. The other hand is empty too.
The best vanishes leave the audience with nothing to suspect. The coin was seen in the hand a fraction of a second before it went, the hands are shown on both sides, and the performer does not hurry to put anything away.
On its own a vanish is a moment rather than a trick. In a routine it is the opening line: the coin goes, and turns up later in a pocket, a wallet, a sealed box or a spectator's hand.
Provenance
Where it comes from
As old as conjuring with money. Coin vanishes appear in the earliest European conjuring books, and the French drop, one of the oldest sleights in magic, is still taught as a first move.
Two books shaped modern coin magic. T. Nelson Downs, a vaudeville star known as the King of Koins, published Modern Coin Manipulation in 1900, and J. B. Bobo's Modern Coin Magic, first published in 1952, became the standard reference that most coin workers since have learned from.
Learning it
What it takes
Beginner to start, a lifetime to perfect. A simple vanish can be learned in an afternoon, but making it invisible at close range takes weeks of practice, and the difference between the two is entirely in the details.
Practise in front of a mirror, and then in front of a camera, because the angles you cannot see are the ones the audience can.
Gimmicked coins and shells make some vanishes much easier and are worth having, but they work best in the hands of someone who has also learned a sleight or two, so the gimmick is never the only thing holding the trick together.
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What you need
Props for the Coin Vanish
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