Magic Tricks With Coins

Children and adults alike enjoy magical shows. Magical presentations are among the most popular past times among people of all ages, especially those who are fond of seeing folks who are clever in manipulating objects or controlling natural events.

Magicians, one who is skilled in performing optical illusion or sleight of hand, are particularly clever in performing amazing tricks. These very same tricks astound people and keep them from coming back.

There are several ways by which you experience the joy of this entertainment. You can either visit a nearby circus which are either permanent or mobile, and or with your friends who are gifted with this wonderful craft.

Magic Tricks

The very core of magic display is the exhibition of tricks. All tricks are done by using objects which either take the form of an animal or are turn into something spectacular.

Humans can also become subjects for performing tricks although current federal laws limit the use of human subjects in the performance of magic tricks.

Although magic tricks make up the most magic exposition, there are those that perform magic using no other objects but themselves.

Famous magicians of yesteryears such as Harry Houdini or Doug Henning mostly make use of material accessories in the performance of their magic tricks.

They make use of illusions out of the material (hat, baton, handkerchief, flowers, paper, etc.) they use which aim to amaze and mystify audience.

Even more startling is the event when other famous magicians perceivably vanish structures such the Statue of Liberty, Taj Mahal and the Space Shuttle. In a similar event, Harry Hudoini apparently made a huge elephant disappear in front of a large audience.

Modern Magic

Modern illusionists (magicians) are bolder compared with previous practitioners. Some worth mentioning are Jeff Sheridan, Franko B and the most famous David Blaine.

David Blaine rose to popularity due to the performance of outstanding, yet bold acts. He has performed levitation, animate dead insects, baffling illusions, among others.

Today’s magicians virtually abandoned the usual magic production: an illusionist pull a rabbit out of a black, empty hat, a glass of water disappear as it is maneuvered across a board, and pour coins from an empty bottle.

Current practice includes exhibition and outrageous production like being stuck in the ice for hours with no interruptions.

Aside from the aforementioned activities, the joy of magic is also incorporated in activities related to birthday parties, education programs, corporate events, and youth groups.



By: David Riewe

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You have to turn the Magic Trick into a Magical Effect. Make your audience believe that you just did the impossible – however simple you know the trick to be, the effect on your audience is what matters. They have to believe that you just produced a card out of thin air, made a coin enter a sealed can of Coke, restored a torn up newspaper – whatever the trick – if your audience don’t believe that you actually did it, you have failed.

One of the best ways is to weave a story around the magic trick. I once saw a famous magician slide a knot off a piece of rope and make it disappear. Very slick. He picked up the rope, tied a knot and then ran his hand down the length of the rope and the knot had vanished. 5 seconds in the middle of an hour long stage show. I forgot about the trick until some years later when a close-up performer did the same trick for me. He took 5 minutes over it; told a story about Harry Potter walking along a river bank and meeting an old sailor who challenged him to a knot tying contest … the effect was somewhat embellished but basically the same trick, and I remembered it – use it myself, now!

The point is; make it interesting rather than clever; better yet, make it amusing if you can. The public know that there is no such thing as Magic (well, OK – MOST of them know it … there are a few odd-balls out there!) and so they realise, at the back of their minds, that we are fooling them. No one likes to be fooled but they will forgive you if you amuse them, entertain them, at the same time.

You don’t have to be Tommy Cooper; it would not be a good thing if the entire Magic profession suddenly turned into comedians! Lighten your act; throw in a few jokes at appropriate points, perform some comical effects amid the more ‘serious’ ones. Above all, remember that you are an entertainer; try not to make your act a showcase for your own cleverness. Entertain and amuse your audience and they will want more. Prove to them how clever you are and they will clap but not care if they don’t see you again.

The Magic Trick is just the method. The Magical Effect is the performance of that method in an entertaining and convincing way. If you ‘do magic tricks’, you are a technician; perform Magical Effects and you are a Magician.



By: Andy Canning

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Cool Card Tricks that Are for the Most Part Performed by Magicians.

Everyone enjoy & attract towards card tricks. We all want to play card tactfully. You find there are lots of books on cool card tricks.

The desire to perform different kinds of tricks is one that we have all felt. When we were child, we play coin tricks, card tricks and more. We are curious about magic which we saw in magic show.

Of the many tricks out there you will find some really cool card tricks. These are the card tricks that have people looking on in total bafflement as they try to figure out what happened to the cards.

As children we tried coin tricks, shell games, different card tricks. We have all at one time or another desired to be magicians and perform many wonderful magic tricks. The best way to start out with these magic tricks is to see the various easy magic tricks that you can try out.

Want to play card tricks ? First of all you need to know the elements which can create curiosity. By doing a card trick which has these elements to the trick you will definitely have the audience eager to see what else you can do. Just to whet your appetite for the sheer number of cool card tricks here are a few that you can try out. The torn and restored card trick is one of the most well known cool card tricks to be performed.

So buy custom playing card or playing card to play card tricks.



By: Abhishek Singh

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A lack of understanding does not necessarily create a sense of mystery. A confusing magic effect is a perfect example of this. (Though “a confused magic effect” may be a more accurate phrase because there are far fewer inherently confusing effects than there are confusing ways of presenting effects.) If you share an effect with your audience and unintentionally lose them somewhere along the way, perhaps because you raced through an important part of neglected to clarify an initial condition, at the end of the routine the audience will fail to grasp the overall effect.

This lack of understanding will create confusion and possibly frustration, but not a sense of mystery. Paradoxically, mystery requires clarity, even a certainty as to the events surrounding the mystery.

ORCHESTRATING FOCUS

Here are nine principles regarding the audience’s visual experience of a performance of magic.

During the performance of an effect the audience is always looking somewhere.

Each spectator sees/gathers a series of images during the effect.

Spectators often gather slightly or even starkly different images depending on a wide range of variables including seating position, mental concentration, emotional involvement, etc.

Each spectator’s collection of highly subjective images make-up the raw visual ingredients of their ultimately unique experience of the effect.

There are six primary areas of audience focus: the performer’s face, his right hand, his left hand, the props, the face(s) of any participants and hands of the participants. When the magician is holding a prop (rather than placing it on the table) or when both of his hands are within a few inches of each other, the separateness of the spheres vanishes and a single sphere of focus is shared.

The performer’s focus, though not absolutely controlling the audience’s focus, powerfully guides it.

To aid in this guiding, the experienced performer will employ his eyes, the direction and angle of his head, his hands, words, and props.

The odds of the audience’s focus shifting from a sphere of attention are in direct proportion to the length of time nothing of interest has happened in that area. With this sphere of attention a moment before you desire them to not be looking there. Just prior to executing a Classic Pass, I use my eyes, the angle of my head and the position of my hands to draw the audience’s attention to the deck, usually as I am the audience looking up into my face when, a moment later, I lower my hands, straighten my shoulders and look the spectators in the eyes.

It is far more effective to guide the audience’s focus towards something rather than away from something.



By: Jay Sankey

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It is all about how you present yourself to the audience: your timing, your sense of humor and your ability to distract are very important. Get on stage and perform the worst that can happen is that people will laugh and your trick doesn’t work out the way you feel it should have. If people laugh just remind yourself that this is part of your performance and continue with the trick. Call yourself a professional and people will assume that you do this full time and have no other source of income. If you are, or consider yourself to be, a magician, are you an amateur, professional or semi-professional.

When performing your magic in front of people or an audience it is possible to misdirect well enough to create the proper illusion, the trick might not work the way you want but the people watching will not know. You can control the audience with a wide range of techniques.

If you change your routine for each performance you may find that you loose the angles you need to perform the illusion, so you have to be very careful about viewing angles. You can mystify the audience by doing magic and leave them mesmerized. The result to the audience is having the belief that some amazing thing just happened. Make sure when you complete the trick that the audience cannot examine anything after the trick has been shown, and so there’s the problem and worry of having to hide your tricks as soon as you finish each one.

When performing street magic it is usually street magic when you do it for a small group of people, in a bar or in your home or office. Buying close-up tricks or magic tricks for the street for your own personal use is one thing, but if you are buying them to perform on the street and become a profession street magician you will need to practice your craft. Some of the great magicians like David Blaine, stunned audiences with his exceptional skill of street magic. Doing street magic is sometimes known as naked magic, doing street magic doesn’t have props or stage hands it the basics of magic with maximum effect. The magician will use everyday objects to mystify the people on the street and keep them guessing on how he did it.

If you are doing tricks with cards practice in front of a mirror as fast or as slow as you can, trying to get a feel of how you move the cards in order to perfect the illusion. Many card magicians will perform some typical card tricks, and you can use the same cards to create the illusion that you have mental powers and use the cards to predict certain situations.

A variety of coin vanishing tricks are prevalent the world over. Some of the most popular coin tricks are the vanishing coin, eggcup and the broken pencil trick.

Everyone is familiar with the famous words of a magician, when children hear Hocus-pocus, abracadabra they become amazed and mystified with the man or women in the black tuxedo.



By: David Marc Fishman

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Is your dream to become a magician? Magic is something that has always fascinated me as an art form and also as a profession. But how do you become a magician, where do you start? This is probably the most common question that spectators ask when they meet a professional magician.

Well this is my personal story as I do not think there is set way of becoming a magician. For me, it all started with the amazement that magic generated in me whenever I watched magicians on TV or live shows. One of my older cousins also had an interest in magic and used to get catalogues from a magic dealer in France.

The description of the effects that you could accomplish (after purchasing the props or technical book / video) was fascinating and the publicity even made it sound like it was pretty easy. I did not know anything about magic but that was how it all started for me.

Back then, there was no such thing as internet - and there were only a handful of magic shops in France, charging a lot of money for the very special items they were selling on a real niche market. I first ordered a few magic tricks that I thought were a bit disappointing.

Then I got my first magic book, called “The Magic Book” by Harry Lorraine. The book had been translated into French which helped as my English was pretty basic at the time. I highly recommend this book if you can get hold of it as it contains a great variety of material and techniques. Basic coin magic and card magic is covered but also some mentalism (mind magic) effects and general magic with everyday objects.

As soon as I got the book, I started practicing very seriously, dedicating most of my spare time to the study of magic. I got my first pack of Bicycle Playing cards (made by the United States Playing Card Company or USPCC) and practiced most of the basic card techniques that are needed in order to perform the tricks that described in the magic literature.

Once you have mastered about half a dozen of important card techniques, you can then learn hundreds of card routines created over the years by our magic community. Of course, I must point out that you do not need hundreds of card routines in your repertoire.

The same applies to coin magic. Once you have learned the most important coin techniques, you can then learn the routines created by magicians. David Stone, David Roth, David Williamson are excellent coin magicians and I would highly recommend the material they have created.

The two most common formats for learning magic are books or dvd. So which format should you go for? Learning magic with DVDs is slightly easier and faster than from a book, and you can get a better idea of the timing for the performance of the effects. One of problems with DVDs though, is what we call the “clone effect”, or magicians copying exactly their source of knowledge even using the same patter as the inventor. Learning magic from a magic book on the other hand leaves more space for the imagination, and personalization of the effects.

I hope this will inspire you to start learning magic. It is great a hobby and can also become your profession if you are ready to spend the time practising.



By: Steven Smith

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Coin tricks have been around almost from the time coins first came into being. They have been a popular fairground attraction for the last two or three hundred years. Nowadays, coin tricks have become a favorite with professional magicians around the world.

Modern coin tricks have evolved into a fascinating act. Street magicians and performers of magic can baffle entire audiences with a variety of tricks. These are tricks such as making coins multiply, vanish and subsequently reappear by plucking them from the air.

Coin tricks are also known as coin flourishing or coin manipulating. They require sleight of hand and a fair amount of practice to improve dexterity. A polished act for presentation will make the coin trick very believable.

Coins come in a variety of sizes. Large shiny coins are more visible against your hand and are ideal for show purposes. Coins with broad or rough edges offer an advantage over other types of coins as they are easier to grip and maneuver.

It is said that practice makes perfect, and that is certainly true when performing coin tricks. Practice enables magicians to identify their personal preferences. The coins most suited to perform particular tricks are the ones which fit to the contours of their palms. These allow coin tricks to be performed deftly without being detected by the audience.

There are books, videos, TV programs, websites and even seminars that are dedicated to showing the many behind the scene magic tricks. These for the most part, focus on simple magic routines. These will help to initiate beginners to the world of magic.

More sophisticated and complicated coin tricks can be gradually developed. There are also seminars at which the “magical community” gather to show off their skill and occasionally. If you’re lucky you will get an opportunity to share their knowledge on how certain of their more baffling tricks are performed.

Some of the easiest coin tricks, though vastly entertaining, require no special skill or ability on the part of the magician. A certain amount of convincing patter can often transform what would otherwise be a very ordinary trick into a gasp evoking performance.

One such case in point, especially where coin tricks are concerned, would be the Penny Prediction. Here a member of the audience is asked to select a coin from a hat, pass it around the room. Everyone except the magician sees the coin. It is then put back into the hat. The magician then proceeds to ‘read’ the minds of the people, or commune with spirits and produce the correct coin.

Coin tricks such as this are very impressive. True. However, they are often very simple and easily explained. Like the Penny Prediction where the coin passed around the room. It absorbs the body heat of those handling the coin and grows warmer. When the coin is put back into the hat, the magician is able to identify it from the rest of the coins immediately.



By: Muna wa Wanjiru

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Magic at its core is a game. A game with the audience’s mind and perception.

Magic tricks, performed by well rehearsed magicians, are games played on the mind that make a witness believe what the magician wants him or her to believe.

A talented magician will undoubtedly use many different kinds of mind games to maneuver an audience into a mind set that allows him to create illusions.

A good magician is an actor, an illusionist, a game player who diverts the audiences attention away from the real trick, that which is actually happening with impeccable timing and shrewdness.

The magician appears to be performing the impossible, right before your very eyes, but distraction is the really game he is playing with you. It is most important in his magic trick that he manipulate or influence the audience into believing what they think they see, by controlling their attention.

Misdirection and sleight of hand is the magician’s finest skill. Even the mechanical or scientific props that are necessary for some of his visual tricks are only as good as the magician’s performance and sleight of hand distractions that lead the audience to believe what they just witnessed.

Timing is also crucial to the Magician’s successful execution of the magic trick. Many times the timing and deception is used to trick the audience into believing the trick is taking place in real time when in fact, the deception actually had taken place a bit earlier.

Equipment designed to aid the magicians performance is certainly available. Although, some of what you see on stage really is only window dressing, just for “looks”, and has nothing to do with the trick you are seeing done.

Learning to play the visual mind games that magicians play is not all that difficult initially… perfecting such techniques to a higher level, however, does require hours and hours of practice. Practice techniques that are best done in front of a mirror in order to ensure a seamless execution of each move.

You can find video instructions on how exactly to perform magic tricks and play the magic games at various web sites.

You will be able to find hundreds of tricks that anyone (old or young, tall or short) can learn to do who has the will to practice enough in order to achieve a level of proficiency.

Once you get started practicing even the most simple of magic tricks, you’ll soon get hooked and forever enjoy learning more and more about the craft.



By: Tammy Foster

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Lets assume that you are a pretty good magician and have developed a great personality to use when performing a magic act for children’s parties. If you haven’t yet devolved a personality, stop here and go create one.

Watch some of the great children’s magicians and learn from them what kind of personality you need to create.

The old second hand tux and a top hat no longer will work. Children are pretty savvy these days… even the little ones.

Children don’t understand the cues in a live performance that are so common. Today’s kids have been raised in the age of television. Not a bad thing, except the laugh tracks tell the children when to laugh.

No laugh tracks and the children are left out in the cold. They are quick and will get up to speed in no time. But they need your help.

The same problem exists with applause. Children are not used to clapping. They don’t understand applause cues. Those wonderfully timed applause cues will leave you and your audience with a lot of uncomfortable silence.

What can be done?

Everything.

One of your most important tasks as a children’s magician is your opening. The beginning of your show must do these things:

1.Establish audience control….. Even in school children are taught to obey those in authority. For some reason, many magicians forget to establish authority early in the show. The result resembles a saloon brawl in the wild west.

2.Teach the children to react to applause cues. After you welcome everyone to the show, look out over the audience and say, “This looks like a really great crowd. Let’s see how loud you can clap. On the count of three ONE. . . TWO . . THREE . .Not bad!

Let’s try it again. On three . . .” After some byplay conclude by saying, “What do we do when we like the magic? (pause) What do we do when we LOVE the magic?” (pause and react strongly to the crowd).

If you want to start your career in magic as a children’s magician, think about it seriously. Kids are brutally honest. There is nothing tougher or more satisfying than have a great children’s magic show.

Being a children’s magician may not be the easiest way to become a part-time professional magician but it sure is a lot of fun.



By: Tammy Foster

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In addition to being a crowd pleaser, the art of magic offers other compensations. It develops quickness and a good use of your hands. It also will develop the necessary poise to address groups of people, since one of the most important things to a magician is a good line of patter to hold the audience’s interest while he is completing a trick. Amaze your friends with these three magic tricks.

The Balancing Handkerchief

Can you balance a handkerchief on the tips of your fingers and make it rise and fall at your command?

Insert a soda straw into the hem of a handkerchief. This and the following step should be prepared ahead.

Tie a knot at the corner of the handkerchief, and push straw up to the knot. Place the handkerchief carefully in your pocket, so you don’t break the straw. Now you are ready to show your friends the trick.

Take the handkerchief from your pocket, holding the knot in one hand. With the other hand, stroke the handkerchief downward two or three times. Still holding it by the knot, bring the other hand down, grasping the lower end of the straw between the tips of the thumb and forefinger. Release your hold on the knot, and it will look as if the handkerchief is balanced upright. Make this look difficult, as if you are making a great effort at balancing the handkerchief.

By a sliding movement of the forefinger and thumb, allow the handkerchief to come down slowly, saying “Down Billy.” Then say, “Up Billy.” You can do this several times. At the end, throw the handkerchief into the air, catching and crumpling it up before placing it back in your pocket. If you have two handkerchiefs prepared, you can satisfy the skeptic who says, “Bet you can’t do it again!”

Materials: A handkerchief with a wide hem, and a soda straw.

The Matchless Matchbox

Can you make a coin appear in an empty match box?

Two steps of this trick must be completed beforehand. First, open the drawer of the match box far enough so that you can wedge a coin between the cover and the end of the drawer. The second step is to slide the drawer in part way until the coin is covered.

When ready, hold up the apparently empty match box, half opened so that your friends can see inside, and say, “This box is matchless in more ways than one.”

Now close the box (the coin will drop into the drawer). After a few magic words, open the box again. To your friends’ surprise a coin has appeared!

Materials: A penny and a match box.

The String and Ice-Cube Trick

Can you snare an ice cube with a piece of string and lift the cube from the glass?

Float an ice cube in a glass of water. Take a string and tie a loop in one end, then invite your friends to try their luck. They will fail, because looping the ice cube is just about impossible.

When they give up, show how it can be done. Simply let the wet loop rest on the ice cube. Sprinkle a little salt on the ice. The surface will melt and then freeze again, with the string embedded in the ice cube. (It takes a little time for the surface to freeze again, so don’t be too hasty with this trick.)

Now lift the string carefully by the free end, and you can draw the ice cube out of the glass.

Materials: Salt shaker, string with a loop, cube of ice, and a glass of water.

You will be a hit at any party with these tricks up your sleeve!



By: Jimmy Cox

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