SIMPLE COIN TRICKS

HOW TO DETECT A MARKED COIN

Place ten coins--say shillings--in any empty finger-bowl and request a member of the company to select one, put a private mark on it, and then holding it in his closed hand, to close his eyes and think of the appearance of the coin very hard. In about a minute pick up the bowl, and going to him, request him to open his eyes; gaze in them, and then make a few mesmeric pa.s.ses over his face. Then request him to drop the coin he holds in the bowl and to mix it up thoroughly with the other nine shillings. Now ask some one to blindfold you; when this is done place your hand in the bowl, and picking up the shillings one at a time, you can at once detect his, which you throw across the table to him for confirmation. The secret is that the coin held in the person's hand has obtained a certain degree of warmth and can at once be detected in consequence.

A PENETRATIVE SHILLING

Sew a halfpenny in the corner of your handkerchief and place the latter in your pocket ready for the trick. Borrow a shilling and request the lender to put a private mark on it. Take out your handkerchief and pretend to place the shilling under it, instead of which pick up the corner containing the halfpenny, place it in the centre and grasp it through the handkerchief with your left hand, while you let the marked shilling drop in the palm of your right. Ask a member of the company to hold the shilling (the halfpenny in the centre) in the handkerchief a few inches above the table. Then pick up an empty gla.s.s with your right hand, hold it under the table, and request the person who holds the handkerchief to let it fall on the table. The coin in the handkerchief will be heard to strike the latter and at the same time you drop the shilling from the palm of your right hand into the gla.s.s and place the latter on the table, while with your left hand you pick up the handkerchief and shake it, being careful not to allow the halfpenny to strike the table again while you are doing so. Request the person who lent the shilling to take it out of the gla.s.s and say if it is the one bearing his private mark.

ANOTHER SIMPLE TRICK

Here is another simple trick with a sixpence. Put a small piece of wax on it, and place it, the waxed side uppermost, in the centre of a handkerchief. Then put one of the lower corners of the handkerchief over the coin and ask some one to put his finger on it and press it. Then move the second lower corner of the handkerchief over the other corner, telling your a.s.sistant to move his finger while you do so. Next cover the two lower corners with the two upper corners of the handkerchief in the same manner, and ask your a.s.sistant if he is sure the sixpence is still there. Of course he will say yes; he can feel it. Then tell him to raise his finger. When he does so, take the two upper corners in your hands, and raise the handkerchief, when the coin will appear to have vanished. Of course, it is sticking to the lower corner of the handkerchief.

A COIN TO DISAPPEAR FROM YOUR CHEEK AND REAPPEAR AT YOUR ELBOW

While sitting at the table turn up your right sleeve, and, taking a half-crown or penny, rub it against your cheek, and then, as if by accident, drop it on the table. Pick up the coin and repeat the process, this time resting your elbow on the table, as you explain, to steady it.

Move your hand from your cheek, and the coin has disappeared, and with your left hand produce it from your elbow. Then say, "I will reverse the experiment and send the coin back." Place your empty hand against your face and your left hand containing the coin under your elbow. After rubbing your face and chin, show the coin again in your right hand and your left hand empty. You require two coins for this trick, one palmed in your left hand. When you rub the coin against your face the second time, drop it inside your collar and produce the palmed coin from your elbow. When you "reverse the experiment," take the coin from your collar as you are rubbing your face and chin and drop the other coin from your left hand into your handkerchief spread over your knees.

TWO VANISHED HALF-CROWNS

This trick requires considerable practice, but is a very effective one.

Take the two coins in your right hand, and throw them repeatedly, one at a time, into the other hand until the audience begin to think it is a "sell." Then, offering your left hand (in which the coins are supposed to be) to some one, say: "Well, you try to do it." Open your hand, and the coins have disappeared.

EXPLANATION.--The last time you throw only one half-crown, and instead of throwing the second, bring the right hand down quickly, and at the same time jerk the coin in your left hand upwards into your right, and it will strike the coin retained there. The clink will be heard, and by closing your left hand quickly you will lead the company to suppose both coins are in that hand. Half-crowns are the best coins for the trick owing to their weight.

A DIVINATION

Request a member of the company (seated) to place a shilling or florin upon each knee, and cover them with his hands with his fingers stretched out. You then tell him, when you turn your back, to raise one of the coins and tap his head with it twelve times just above his ear; then replace it on his knee and cover it with his hands as before; and you will tell him, on examining the coins, which one he raised.

The examination of the coins has really nothing to do with the trick.

All you have to do is to look at the person's hands; the blood leaves the hand that has been raised, and when it is again placed beside the other the difference in colour is most perceptible.

I have performed this trick hundreds of times in drawing-rooms, and it has never been detected, but created great surprise.

AN EFFECTIVE BUT SIMPLE TRICK

Stick a halfpenny (or a shilling) under the edge of a table secretly with a small piece of wax. Show another halfpenny to the company, and when it is returned to you, place it in front of you on the table while you turn up your sleeves. Then place the fingers of your left hand under the table, and with your right hand sweep the halfpenny on the table into your left, at the same time getting hold of the halfpenny under the table, taking care that one coin does not strike the other. Then place your right hand over your left, and pretend to rub the halfpenny the audience have examined very vigorously, and, showing both coins, say you have rubbed one halfpenny into two. You can improve on this trick by using four halfpence on the table and one stuck under the edge. Sweep two coins into your left hand, get possession of the stuck halfpenny, and close your hand. Hold it up, and say: "There are two halfpennies on the table, and I have two in this hand." Picking up the two halfpennies with your right hand, tell the company that you intend to pa.s.s one of them into the other hand. Then lay both hands flat on the table, lift your left hand, and show three halfpennies under it. Slide your right hand off the table, leaving one halfpenny behind, and carrying the second coin away with your fingers. As your hand leaves the table, press the halfpenny with your thumb against your two middle fingers, and nip it with your first and little fingers. Remove your thumb, and you will find you can hold it securely "palmed." Then with the right hand sweep the three halfpennies back into the left hand, at the same time letting the "palmed" coin fall with them. Close your fingers over them quickly, and picking up the remaining halfpenny from the table with your right hand, say: "I intend to make this halfpenny join its companions. One, two, three--go!"

Pushing it with your thumb against your two middle fingers, palm it as before, and throw the four coins which you hold in your left hand on the table. While the attention of the company is on them, drop the "palmed"

coin in your pocket.

CHANGING APPLE AND COINS

Procure two small apples exactly alike, and in the bottom of one scoop out a hole large enough to hold a pile of three sixpences. Make a conical cover out of cartridge paper large enough to cover the apple and about nine inches in height. Obtain six sixpences, three of which place in a pile on an inverted gla.s.s goblet. Conceal the other three and the hollow apple in your left hand. Ask some one to examine the cover, and, on receiving it back, transfer it to your left hand and slip it over the apple. Then give the duplicate apple for examination, and, taking the cover by its lower part, and the apple concealed in it, place both over the three sixpences on the gla.s.s. Take the apple that has been examined, and put it under the table with your left hand, hold it between your knees, and say: "I command this apple to pa.s.s through the table and take the place now occupied by the three sixpences, and the sixpences to fall into my hand." Bring your left hand from under the table and show the coins, lift up the cover and show the apple on the gla.s.s. Then reverse the procedure. Cover the apple on the gla.s.s; place the three sixpences under the table; secure the apple held between your knees and roll it on the table; lift up the cover and hollow apple together, and, dropping the latter into your lap, show the former is empty. This trick should be performed sitting.

AN OBEDIENT SIXPENCE

Place two half-crowns (or pennies) on the table and a sixpence between them. Then cover the coins with an inverted wine-gla.s.s, the edges of the latter resting upon the larger coins. Challenge any one to remove the sixpence without touching the gla.s.s or the money. It is done very easily, and in an amusing manner. You have only to scratch the tablecloth with your finger-nail in the direction you wish the coin to come, saying: "Come hither, sixpence," and it will at once obey you.

COIN AND GLa.s.s

Cover the mouths of two gla.s.ses with newspaper, by gumming it on them, and trim off the edges neatly.[A] Stand them inverted upon two pieces of newspaper in such a manner that the type on the paper over the gla.s.ses fairly corresponds with that on the paper on the table. Make two cones of newspaper to fit closely over each gla.s.s. Un.o.bserved by the company, place a penny under the gla.s.s on your left, which will of course be concealed by the paper on the mouth of the gla.s.s. Then borrow a penny, and, placing the cone over the gla.s.s on your right, lift the latter covered by the former from the table; lay the borrowed penny on the newspaper, and cover with the gla.s.s and cone. You call attention to the fact that there is nothing under the other gla.s.s, and you then cover it with the second cone. You now tell the company that at your word of command the penny will leave one gla.s.s and travel invisibly over the table to the other gla.s.s. You lift the cone from the gla.s.s on your right, under which the borrowed penny was placed, and the coin is not to be seen. Then, lifting both the cone and gla.s.s together on your left, the concealed penny is brought into view. You now announce your intention of sending the penny back. Place the covered gla.s.s over the penny and replace the cover over the gla.s.s on your right. "One, two, three--go!" you exclaim and, lifting the cone off the gla.s.s on your left, the penny under it appears to have disappeared, and on removing the other gla.s.s, still covered by the cone, the borrowed penny will once more be seen. This trick can be worked with one gla.s.s only and the penny made to appear to drop through the table in your hand placed under the latter ready to catch it (the penny, of course, being already palmed in your hand); but the use of two gla.s.ses makes the trick more effective, and it can be repeated many times without fear of detection. The paper upon which the gla.s.ses stand can, of course, be examined; but the gla.s.ses when removed from the paper must be covered with the cones, or the paper cover on the mouth of each will be seen.

[A] This piece of apparatus neatly constructed can be obtained at a trifling cost at any of Messrs. Hamley Bros.' Conjuring Depots, London.

A SIMPLE EXPERIMENT WITH FOUR SHILLINGS

Borrow four shillings; place one on the palm of each hand, and, holding the palms upward, close your fingers over them. Then request a member of the company to place the other two coins on the nails of your two middle fingers; and announce your intention of throwing a coin from one hand to the other, explaining it is rather a difficult feat to accomplish with your hands closed. Make one or two movements with your hands, and then, as if accidentally, drop the two shillings resting upon your nails upon the table. Apologising for your clumsiness, request some one to replace the coins on your nails, saying you will have another try. Now give your hands a jerk upward; open them and catch the coins on your nails, one in each hand, and tell the company you have accomplished your purpose and sent one coin flying invisibly through the air from one hand to the other. To verify your a.s.sertion open your hands and show three coins in one hand and only one in the other.

EXPLANATION.

When you make the first attempt, and appear to fail, in the upward movement of your hands you open them and allow the shilling resting upon the nail of your left hand to slip into the palm, while you permit the coin in the palm of your right hand to fall, with the one above it on the nail, on the table. If this is done neatly the company will suppose it is the two coins from the nails which have fallen. You now have two shillings in your left hand and none in your right. In the second attempt you have only to catch the shillings resting on your nails in the manner described, and on showing one shilling in your right hand and three in your left, your statement that one has travelled invisibly from one hand to the other will appear to be correct.

PUZZLE OF TEN HALFPENCE

Place ten halfpence in a row upon the table, then taking up any one of the series, place it upon another, with this proviso, that you pa.s.s over just two halfpence each time. Repeat this until there is not a single halfpenny left. Let the following figures represent the halfpence:--

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Place No. 4 upon No. 1; No. 7 upon No. 3; No. 5 upon No. 9; No. 2 upon No. 6; and No. 8 upon No. 10. A little practice will enable the reader to do this puzzle without referring to the figures.

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR WEALTH

Obtain three sixpences exactly alike, place one in your pocket and stick the other two with a small piece of wax under the edge of the table about an inch apart. After showing other tricks produce the sixpence from your pocket and show it to the company to prove it is an ordinary coin. Pull up your sleeves, and if the table has a cover turn it back.

Place the coin on the table near the edge over the concealed sixpences, and showing your right hand is perfectly empty place your thumb over the coin and rub it vigorously backwards and forwards on the table. At the same time run your first and second fingers under the table, and securing one of the coins sticking there move it and the coin under your thumb simultaneously off the table, and pinching them together between your thumb and finger, say: "I will show you how to double your capital.

I am going to rub this sixpence into two sixpences." Then showing your other hand is empty use the left thumb and finger to a.s.sist in the rubbing, and gradually separate the two coins and exhibit them. Then putting the sixpence with the wax in your pocket place the other one near the edge of the table and repeat the trick, saying: "See, I have now trebled my capital." Do not allow the company to examine the waxed coins.

A NEAT COIN TRICK

Procure three coins (pennies or half-crowns) exactly alike. Scratch a cross on two, and in the third bore a hole, in which fasten a short piece of black elastic cord. The other end of the elastic tie round your ankle, taking care that the coin does not hang below your trouser leg.

Put one of the marked pennies in your left-hand trousers pocket and drop the other one un.o.bserved into the pocket of some one present, or give it to a confederate to hold. Commence by borrowing a similar coin to those you are using and mark it like the others. Hold it between the thumb and finger of the right hand, and, giving it a twist, spin it on the table, then snapping your fingers over it, catch the edge of the coin and it will fly up your sleeve. Close your hand and say, "I will make this coin fly up my sleeve, travel round my back, and pa.s.s down my other sleeve."