Impromptu magic tricks are some of the most powerful magic there is. But there are so many different impromptu effects out there that it can be hard to know where to start. So here’s the BIG question: which effects are the BEST impromptu magic tricks?
In this blog post, you’ll discover the best impromptu magic tricks out there, including some of our very favorite tricks. You’ll discover astonishing effects that can be done with next to ZERO preparation.
We’ve included the original video lesson, one of our original Afternoon Astonishment series – a brand new show from Conjuror Community designed to bring you magic when it counts the most.
Watch the video below, or if you’d prefer, you can read the complete transcript of this show below. Enjoy!
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Transcript:
Adam: Erin drew livestream. Here we go, Aaron. All right, hit it.
Aaron: Hey everybody. Aaron Fisher here with Chondra community live in the daytime. See these afternoon delight. I’m joined today by Alexander slammer. Say hi Alex. Hello everybody. Adam grace and everybody and our friend. No longer photos. Steve Barcelona and say hi Steve. Hey, what’s up everybody? We are so happy to see you here today. We’re going to watch just a couple of tricks that we’ve been pouring over lately that we love so much that are very, very exciting. You don’t need any special magic props for these. Why don’t we just fire the first one up and then we’ll talk about it.
Adam: I love it. All right, here we go. This is this is the first clip. All right, and let’s make sure we turn our cameras off.
Aaron: You’ve all been so wonderful. We’re going to give you something easy on the fingers now. Easy on the mind for our big finish, mr Adam grace. Woohoo.
Adam: Coming up the Beck street number three with your new favorite trick. Actually, I will say this might be your new favorite trick because who doesn’t need an awesome trick that you can do anywhere pretty much for any audience. And it’s impromptu to some degree. Meaning you need a, you need access to a pack of matches. So the next time you’re at a restaurant and there’s a bowl of matches there or somewhere you can boom, you can go into this trick. Usually that’s when I think about doing it. So this is one of those trick is really simple. I learned this when I was a kid and it is literally one of my favorite tricks in the whole world because of those two things.
Adam: I learned it when I was a little little guy and and it just uses a, a pack of matches so you don’t have to have any, anything. Gaffed. So anyway here it is. This is Dino’s any of you guys ever eaten at Dino’s before? Well, as you can see, it says ice cold beer and fine food. I’ve actually actually never had their food. But I do like to keep a pack of dinos matches around because I had to come in handy whenever, you know, you meet somebody who’s if there’s any smokers left out there who’s smoking. So I use these quite a bit and if you if you look, you’ve got well I’ve used a lot of Dino’s matches here. I’ve got exactly one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five of Dino’s matches left. We’ve used all the rest. So what I’m going to do is just gonna I’m gonna take the number four out of there. So we have, here’s number four. I’ll set it right there and there you go. You’ve got a one, two, one, two, three, and five that are left. So there’s a four matches left inside the matchbook. So check this out. Started with five removed. One number four.
Adam: Here we go. You can gather the kids around. Remember, kitties don’t play with matches. Five minus one is four. Let’s do that again. Five minus one is four. If you rub it right there, you’re right into Dino’s face. Number five will disappear. But he doesn’t actually disappear. What he does is he jumps back in to the matchbook. You see, because now we’ve got one, two, three, four, five matches. It’s even burned. You can see still attached. Look at this guy. It’s still attached, but he likes, he likes to return right there with all of his little friends. That’s what I know. I know. I love it.
Shawn: Alright, great. Great. Ever. I’m just going to say that right now. I actually just want to say on the record, I like that trick a lot better than my trick.
Steve: You know Adam, I used to bartend and that was one of the things I did all the time. I know, I know. Great. It’s, it is deceptively powerful. It is. So the reason
Adam: Adam is the bomb is because I’m looking out for you guys. Okay. Cause I know you need tricks like this. They’re visual, powerful and all you need to pack a mattress. And like I said, the next time you roll up into a joint and you see a pack of matches matches, it’s really easy to set this up. So let’s talk about how to do it. It’s real, super simple. So here’s the setup. Okay, you just need to burn one match and you need to have that match attached. And then what you want to do is you want to just bend that match down because the entire time all I was doing was hiding it from you with my thumb. So I had that, that match bent down, hiding by my thumb. And I’m able to very plainly show you one, two, three, four matches.
We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the best impromptu magic tricks. Remember, if you want to see what we’re discussing, just scroll up and check out the video above.
Adam: Now I can rotate this back and as I do, I can rotate the match right back into place so I can show the front the back of this thing. The minute I open it and I’ll give you the expose view. And then I open it. I just reach up in here and I just bend that. I just bend that burn match down underneath my thumb. So now I’m holding it literally like this. So that’s pretty much all there is to it guys. So you let the kids count one, two, three, four matches. Now you’re going to rip out one [inaudible]. And so that complaint, you see one, two, three mattress. Here’s the fourth. So you’re going to set that one down. Are you going to let someone hold it? Now you’re going to re revolve the whole thing backwards and as you do, you’re simply just going to kick that match right back up into its place as you close it.
Adam: Okay? That’s the entire setup. So now you’ve got this right, you need to burn this match because this is the part that’s going to burn their brains. Okay? How did the burn match end up back inside there? So I had four I ripped out one that left him be three. So now I’m going to do a bit of math here. So you blow this out. I have four, I had four, I ripped out one that leaves three. I had four ripped out one that leaves three. So here’s kind of what I did. Okay, you had four ripped out one that leaves three this time. As I say, I had four, I just dropped the match in my lap, ripped out one that leaves three. I put it there. And so it’s just a bit of misdirection to allow you to drop that match right down into your lap or on the floor and no one ever catches it.
Adam: Especially if you sort of to this, this kind of pacing, this four minus one that leaves three. So that’s it. You can do it a lot of other ways. You could do a symbol, you know, vanish off the table. But anyway, now all you have to do is turn around and open this thing up and that burnt match has returned inside right there and you make sure that you show that it’s attached. And then if you want to, you can even bend it down a little bit so that way you can hand it to someone to check out. And that’s the best part, being able to hand this out because now people are going to sit there and go, wait a minute, this thing is attached. It’s burned and attached. So that’s the trick. It’s one set up and it allows you to do this trick over and over and over again.
Adam: All right, so there it is. My favorite trick. That’s a great trick. And let me tell you, I taught this to a guy named Wally when I was bartending and he would vanish the match by eating it every single time. And he would, and I thought you were going to do that. And he would do it like 20 times a night. And I’m like, dude, like, why do you keep eating the matches? Oh, it fools me every time. I’m like, yeah, but you, well, I don’t know what, what I don’t have, I mean, is that good for you to eat all that sulfur?
Steve: While it wasn’t the kind of guy that worried about stuff like that? Certainly he’s, while he’s getting ran, I have no idea. You know, it’s like one of those people that, you know, comes into your life for a while and then they’re gone and you know, you need too many matches. Your guy,
Aaron: Adam, Mark said that he used rip it out, pre rip it and then fake gripping it out. And so he got around the vantage that way. I thought that was pretty cold notion. Ah, for myself, I always found that, you know, even if you’re scared about labbing when you’re behind a bar or you’re standing up or something, actually dropping a match is literally the best way to learn because you can literally just let it go and it’s literally, it’s a, it’s a confidence better like no other.
Adam: Well, the other thing too is that it uses fire. So there’s the visual nature to it. I think it’s a great visual trick. Kids really like it and you can, you know, you can tell the kids don’t play with matches. And you know, Paul brings up a good point, which is matches maybe hard to find in the UK. You can’t find them at restaurants anymore. I’m still down here in the South where they have them everywhere. But the great thing about this, just put a matchbook in your pocket and you’ve got a trick that’s tiny and lives with you everywhere. The other thing is, is that the, if you will start with I wouldn’t start with more than about 10 matches, you know, I, I’d rip out all of them. So you only have about 10, cause you don’t want people counting to 20. You know, 10 is a good place to start. You get to do this effect 10 times. So not, not a whole all in all, not a bad, a a bad idea to just carry your own matches. If you can’t, if you can’t find it anytime you can play with.
Aaron: Well, I certainly hope that I’m not stepping on anything by saying that. I’ve always loved that trick.
Alex: It’s a wonderful trick. It’s as good as it gets. It’s great. It’s object magic. You know, it’s not a card trick. Yeah. Right. And any matches that are around, you need what, like a minute to prepare that thing and now you have this thing in your pocket that’s like a weapon and like Adam said, you can just repeat it over and over. It’s as good as it gets.
Adam: There’s this place called a bargain hunt that you can go to and you can get these, this is a, this cost $1 and it is basically, yeah, that’s filled with your props that say Dino on them. No, this, this one does. And these are just blank, which I actually think I like better because you could combine this with, with other elements that you could use. So if you wanted to do a card trick with a, a simple reveal or something on it, you’d have a reason to bring in the matches. At this point. You could even do a folded up card or something in there. So, so I liked the blink matches better. So that’s bargain hunt. Wish we had an affiliate link for bargains, but we do. Yeah, it’s a killer trick. And I have to admit like a, you know, when you’re a kid and you’re, and you’re learning and you’re learning lots of impromptu tricks from all the greatest books that, that trick is the one that you know, always keeps coming back again and again. And again. It’s just, it has this, I don’t know, it just has this thing to it where it’s just so good. I just love it.
We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the best impromptu magic tricks. Remember, if you want to see what we’re discussing, just scroll up and check out the video above.
Aaron: You know, we all love it. Baxter here says it’s a great comment. You can bend down and burn, match, tear out a match, burn all the other matches, then produce one on unturned match in the book burn matches. It really is a like according to Copia of conjuring, isn’t it? See?
Steve: Yeah, for sure. I think it’s funny because Todd asks, what about Wally and I, I’m such a simple person that as you started that trick, I was like, Oh yeah Wally. And that was the first time I thought him again and then I popped up saying it. So man, I’d tell him, yeah, this is, this is one of those tricks that it’s just so good to know how to do. It’s, it’s powerful. It’s easy. You know, you can do it pretty much impromptu. I count this. Do you guys think this is impromptu cause like to me this is impromptu.
Alex: Well, impromptu sort of a misnomer, right? And prompt you implies that nothing has to happen. But you know, there’s always a little bit of preparation and you have to practice no matter what the trick is. Right. So yeah, it’s an impromptu trick as far as concerned. Yeah. I think it is 30 seconds to a minute you set up that match book. It’s done. But that little secret preparation
Aaron: Parent, I have to admit, you know, I am not one of these people that collects a vast hoard of impromptu magic. You know, everyone kind of knows the deal with magic. I like to do, this is a trick that I have always done. This has always been a GoTo trick. It’s, it’s not one in a hundred that sticks with me that I can really rely on any time when you know, Oh if you’re a magician, you don’t have your cards. Well thank goodness I see that match book cause I know I know how to do that. You know what I mean? I can always hack my ham dog my way through that one. Right. That’s right. It’s absolutely wonderful.
Steve: I’m a big fan of, of like not performing unless I’m asked to almost like I don’t just bust in and I wouldn’t just do that. I’ve never been that way, but I can remember times I would set this up, stick it in my pocket and never do it. You know? Like you’d just be that far ahead and then it just never presented itself. Right. You know? And that’s why I think that’s what makes us unprompted. It’s like if I walked into a place and saw the matches, I’d set it up, you know? And then just see if they brought it, you know, if the moment came about right.
Aaron: Because it’s unlike some, you know, there’s some things we do, I’m thinking about to that Chris corn event and wonderful event that we had. You know, some people walk into the, to the kitchen and grab the smallest fruit they can find and just start stuffing their pockets with lemons.
Aaron: And then you can bet in the same way Churchill used to say, you can’t simultaneously prepare, prepare for and prevent war. You know, if you’re going to go into the kitchen and start jamming your pockets filled with fruits and lines, you can bet there’s dang well gonna be a cups and balls performance regardless. And one of the smartest thing that Mike lever ever told me, he’s giving me some counsel before some shows that I was doing once, is that the best thing about doing miracles on demand, most important aspect of it is knowing how to let it go. You know, if you happen to have that person’s phone number stacked into your deck or you happen to have the miracle ham sandwich just waiting, they don’t ask for the ham sandwich yet, just let it go. And that’s a really tough temptation. And, and certainly if you’ve got lemons in your pocket, you’re gonna produce them. But the matchbook, you know, you can prep that up and you can just not it, you can do it. If it comes up, not do it if it doesn’t come up. All right. I’m very curious to know among our panel, if anyone can think of a couple of tricks that are complimentary to this trick of the sorts of things that you might do if you had these batches out already. You know, like what, what comes to mind? If I wanted to work up my little set with the matches,
Alex: There’s a thing that I have that’s in the [inaudible]. It’s in the backroom. It’s a, you get, you get the book of matches, you light a match, you put the match out in your hand and you just blow on it and it’s gone. It’s just a complete vantage of a match and it’s wonderful. It’s one of my favorites. And at the, if you want to, you can even show that it’s in your hand and a little smoke starts rising out of your hand. You know, you just sort of maneuver the match around in your hand. You see smoke start rising out of your hand. Then again, you wave the matchbook and it’s gone. It’s really, really, it’s a Billy McComb trick. I love it.
Aaron: Take a moment to remind all of our members about the training that we have on that and a lot of thumb to train for our members in the back room. I have to tell you, if you’re stuck on the quarantine and you haven’t learned how to do a thumb to, I just remember taking a poll of all the campers at magic camp many years ago. And these are kids that I had been working with on heavy card stuff for years. They were in there getting into their early twenties already. And I took a poll one year and I said, so how many of you can, can work with a thumb tip? And none of them could. And I think it used to be taken for granted that everyone knew how to work with a thumb tip. And now if you just check it out, if you just check around, what you’ll find is 95% of the people who call themselves magicians are not comfortable with doing your basic thumb tip handling.
Aaron: And the trick Alex is talking about is a perfect example. You know, a thumb tip is the ultimate thing to stick in your pocket and then not use or use because there’s a thousand things to do or nothing at all. It takes up no space. You can use it or not use it. I used to be a big fan of that Roger cloud, SpongeBob vanish Newell has just mentioned something that I think is a killer idea. I really appreciate it. And we’ll Shawn in the back room. Maybe we should do this. And one of these watch parties did the burnt and restored napkin trick and I believe that method you did. So you use a thumb tip and no says, Hey duper napkin restored match goes back in the matchbox. How perfect is that? What it complete routine out of seemingly absolutely nothing. And, and frankly that’s just a little example of the kinds of things you can do when the thumb tip is with you. It can literally turn anything around you into a cohesive routine. Just to let everybody know, our members is like, now that we’re having these daytime sessions, it’s a rare opportunity to get to share it with our members. Things that otherwise you might not know to find. Right. Because that back room, I remember area’s got a lot of stuff in it that, you know, once you start digging around, I’m just curious. Show us some ones if you ever actually go digging around in that back room looking for stuff.
Aaron: Nice. That’s good. Yeah. Testing, testing. How’s that? How’s that sound? Let me go ahead and bring the mic closer and see if that works better. Okay. So just to let you all know in the back room, the very first training I did years ago, it’s not, it’s not pretty a video wise, but it’s literally some of the most useful training we’ve ever put up there. And of course it’s me and the thumb tip. So who’d even think, but it’s the core self vanish training. You know, when you take a silk handkerchief, showed him both sides and it comes back out. Right. Just did it right. That’s the whole thing. That is still, I think the best and easiest way to learn how to use a thumb tip. You’ve got a lot of natural cover built into it and a very specific sequence that allows you to face your fear. The thing about thumb tips is you have to face your fear a little bit. You’re scared of getting caught with a thumb tip on, and that’s really the worst part of it. So I really do recommend that you first learn just the silk vanish. Then in a later session, this is all before Alex is sort of beautiful, advanced thumb tip training featuring stuff like the Slydini is and there’s Slydini vanish.
Alex: Oh yeah, yeah. There’s, there’s quite a few things in there. There’s a sugar packet and all the sugar banish. It’s a wonderful, wonderful routine.
Aaron: Yeah, well the a hundred dollars bill change Alex teachers, I’m saying previous to all that. I think if you take that, so vantage training I did and the salt vanish training that I did and then check out a plan. And the old plan we did called visual thumb tip transitions, which basically his entire treatise on how to take all the other magic we were doing things with and transforming any object you were working with and any other object that you were working with. And so that sort of gives you a, the fundamentals of making stuff disappear and reappear. And then Alex has done all this beautiful, beautiful training on everything from the torn and restored bill, a hundred dollar bill change and all this wonderful advanced stuff. And I honestly think you’ll bring this up. Incidentally, just a quick announcement. If you’re watching this on your YouTube channel, please take a moment to like and subscribe to the channel below this video. See, I’m learning how the modern world works that, that Shawn Mullins burnt and restored napkin is a real keeper as well. So I would love it. I just, let me see a one. If you as one of our members happens to have a thumb tip at home,
Aaron: I think it would be pretty easy for us to take one of these sessions next week and turn it into alive hardcore thumb tip bootcamp.
Steve: I was going to say, can we call it a thumb tip? A phone
Alex: And depends on how you tip it off.
Aaron: It’s a fun tip. Athon Hey everybody, check out that link. Grab that link real quick from Mike Sproul inside the chat, that’s the zoom link for the 5:00 PM meeting jam session that Mike Sproul is going to host and just about a half an hour. So did we get votes? Were those ones that you have a thumb tip or ones that you want to see? One, if you want to have a thumb tip boot camp next week where we just go over some of the basics cause we would love to do it, I would love to step through the old silk vanish. And, and we can just do some real simple, basic things, because I know just like a mind reader, 90% of ya have got it around and never ever use it. Right. I only be in our club maybe a little bit more. People use it. I think what happens is, is that it’s a little more trickier than you think it is. You know? And then maybe, maybe you show it to family or showed your friends, you get snagged, maybe you get caught out and then you’re like, Oh, this no one’s ever gonna believe that. And then it’s the number one joke in the world, right? Is the rubber thumb is the biggest show. So if you just [inaudible] thing, right, it’s the most embarrassing way to get burned and never go back. Right. But exactly. But when you do it right, you don’t get caught. And it’s mind blowing.
We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of the best impromptu magic tricks. Remember, if you want to see what we’re discussing, just scroll up and check out the video above.
Alex: I, I’ve had this experience when you know you’ve done it right, is this, when you do a trick like that and you’d like vanish a silk, I’ve done a vanishing silk and a vanishing cigarette for someone. And they said, you know, I don’t know how you did that. I saw a guy do that before and he used a rubber thumb, but I have no idea how you,
Steve: Yeah, that’s when you, you want to go outside and be like, yes, that’s right. That’s right.
Aaron: So that’s exciting because I think we’re looking to be inspired as to, you know, I love this, the way that this flows back and forth and now we’re going to look at one more item today, right? And I’m wondering if we should take a look at it now because it uses entirely different object. And when Alex showed this to us, you’ll probably see when I respond, it was literally the prettiest thing I’d seen in memory. Hey, why don’t you just, everybody who’s in chat, just go ahead and click on that link. Don’t copy it, just click on it, and then it’ll open up a whole tab for you and you’ll be able to go right there or copy it out of your address. Bar. Okay. Well then Michael will post it in the member club area on the, on the Facebook group and you’ll be able to get it there. In the meantime, why don’t we go ahead and watch this second clip. It’s such a beautiful thing. Please pay no attention to the facial hair on that man’s face.
Alex: I’m ready. I’m ready. I have something that’s really cool. Let me ask about like this here so we can make sure we have no blinks. I have something that I like to use as, as that little bit of extra something like Aaron and I talk about this thing, the idea of the the Thunderbolt, something a little bit extra or something for someone that just walked up and they missed the whole show. Oh, I’ve got one for you. I’m no fool everyone else. And it’s just a beautiful thing that just uses a coin and a pocket square. So very simply you hold a coin, you cover it with a pocket square and put it right in the middle, just like this. And you could feel that it’s there. Aaron, if he were here, I’d have you actually grab it and if you looked underneath, you could see that it’s really there.
Alex: I’m not, I’m not messing around. It’s really, it’s really under the handkerchief. Now here’s what I would do. I would give you this handkerchief and just give it a little twist like this and have you hold onto the end and when you’re holding the end, just like that, I just killed a little, little metrical pull, just like this little pull, look, look, look, look, look. The coin starts to emerge right from the pocket square like that. I could give out the coin and then have them examine and see that it is just a pocket square, that there’s nothing funky or phony about it. Wow.
Alex: Not only that, we should do something else with the coin. One other thing with the coin. I’m going to do this. I’m going to make a little bag with the with the pocket square just like this. And if I make the bag just right, what happens is I can put the coin inside of the pocket square just like this. And I give it a little tab. Make sure it’s really there. And what happens is this, I just get a little bloke in the coin vanishes. There you go. That’s my little something extra. I can impromptu devil’s Hank as though you’re cool, right?
Alex: The pocket idea, man. It’s just an old thing. I’m sorry. Let me, let me, let you guys see sort of running, running over here. Do you have your cell phone? Do it again with the cell phone. I love that. Oh, I’ll do it. Yeah, let’s do actually have something better here so that we can do this. Let me spotlight it one more time here. If I do it one more time here, we’ll just do the whole thing again. I’ll just make the bag of the vantage at least one more time here. Make a bag just like this with the handkerchief. And I have, I have something else. Aaron’s right. It’s, it’s better with a little bit of a little bit of sound. I have a little plate, just a, just a T dish. And I just get the coin and put it in here and you can, you can hear it. You can actually hear it in there. Right. But the watch, because just the same bam, bam.
Aaron: That’s definitely my favorite trick of all. Yeah. He just took his teacher, he fooled me so bad for me so bad. But this, he went clean, clean, clean, and they went bam. What on earth happens?
Alex: So this is a really cool thing. So the first part is just from Bobo’s modern Klein magic. And if you go and look for it in print, what it really is, is it’s the ring or the coin through the rings in a, you actually put the hankered, the coin inside of the handkerchief, and then you would get, you would have the coin under there, they could feel it. You have them take the ends, they threaded the ring into it and there’s a ring right below where the coin is and now you pull the coin through the handkerchief. That’s really what it’s from. I just took away the ring part because to me it just felt like it was just too slow.
Alex: And I wanted to get to the effect. So basically what’s happening is I’m showing the coin in the handkerchief and through the process of showing the coin in the handkerchief, I’m getting it to the other side of the handkerchiefs that I can then make it look like it’s being pulled through. So let me show you what that entails. So you legitimately hold the coin at your fingertips. Ah, this is actually a good opportunity for our close up cam cam trademark. All right, here we go. So you can hold the coin like this and you’re going to cover it with the handkerchief like this. Now what’s going to happen is you’re going to get just a little bit of the handkerchief. You’re just going to get a little bite, a bit behind your thumb, just like that. So you’re holding just a little tiny bit of the handkerchief.
Alex: You’re going to do this under the guise of, I put the coin under here and you could feel that it’s there. And what I’ve done is I’ve just made this little bite happen so that now I’m holding that little bite of a handkerchief against the coin, right? So it goes from that position to me having a little bite of fabric just like that. And I’m holding the coin and it’s pretty extreme. And, and that’s the top of the coin right there. What this allows for is that I can lift the front of the handkerchief, I can show that the coin is there, and now if I just let everything fall, everything is on is, is hiding the fact that the coin is outside the handkerchief, right? So let me go through this again and show you why and what’s going on here. So getting them covering like this, and I’m making my bite here like this. As I say the coins here, I lift up, I show, and you need to show it underneath so that you have an excuse to let your hand fall forward and that everything above the bike fall as well so that you have that little bite there that now makes it look like the coin is inside the handkerchief. But in reality, you’re out. Right? Let me do it one more time. Here.
Alex: You covered the coin, goes over the coin. Just like this. You make your little bite. And I do this as I make a remark of you could feel the coin, you know, if they need to, I let, I’ll let them feel the coin. Cause there’s, it’s MSN at this point. Nothing tricky has happened other than this little bite in. That could just be the way you’re holding everything. So nothing suspicious is happened. Happened yet. This is when it happens. This is the suspicious part. Now I gesture and I show the silver coin and I let everything fall. So again, in stages it’s that falls. Then this falls. And because that bite was there, the coin is now there. But if you do it all in one action, remember the coins just here, I get my little bite like this, I show show the coin is really there underneath the handkerchief and now I just let my, my left hand fall forward. So everything falls. Let me do that again. So I’m in frame. So I show like this, show the coin like that, and I just let everything fall and now I’m outside the handkerchief. And once I’m outside the handkerchief like that, now it’s a very easy manner to just make this bag around the coin like this. And here’s what it looks like from underneath. Okay.
Alex: Right? And if I give that a nice little twist like this and continue the twist as I handed to a spectator and then just have them make a fist around this. Now I have this illusion of the coin being in here and I can slowly need at the fabric and I can then pull that silver coin right through and they’re holding everything. So I just let go. They open up the pocket square and they can see that it is just what it is. And I can have this out. And the other cool thing about this is that I think if you just have a good rigid piece of fabric, you can do this. You don’t necessarily need to have a pocket square. There’s no reason you couldn’t just use a linen dinner napkin from when you’re going out to dinner with friends. It makes it kind of one of those ultimate impromptu tricks.
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Alex: If you just have a coin with you of doing that, pulling through the fabric steakhouse. Surprise. There it is. So that’s the first part. Any questions on that before we move into the actual advantage?
Adam: I think it’s awesome. It’s classic man, that sounded just great. I can’t even, I must have read that years ago. Cause you said it’s in Boba. It’s in both. Yeah. It’s one of those things that I never even attempted. I probably just read it and then skipped right. Ride it and said hell, learn that later or something. But looks so good.
Alex: It’s easy to do with BOLO because there’s so many wonderful things as you’re leafing through that. Oh let me try this. And you know, it is sort of, it is that Bible of coin magic. So if you’re in the coins, there’s, there’s a lot of goodies in there, that’s for sure.
Alex: Yeah. So shows the second one. Okay. So let’s talk about how we do the banish. So this is very deceptive. It’s actually a topological thing that’s fooling you. We do it one more time just because, so that we’re clear and we understand what the actions are together as we go through this. So you make a bag with the handkerchief just like this. And the idea is that when I make this bag, I can put the coin in the middle like this. And again, we can get a, you can hear it right in there, right? And again, I can just give it a little blow and the coins gone.
Alex: It’ll look great. I look great. So let’s talk about what that is. So there’s an actual weird way that you’re going to form the handkerchief into the bag. And when you do that, you’re actually creating the gimmick for doing this trick. And it’s a gimmick that the handkerchief becomes gimmicks and then it goes away as you drop everything. It’s really, really elegant. So let’s talk about what that is. I have a little teaching aid here so that we can see, and it’s just a file card, but it’s going to show you what happens here. When I make this fold, what’s happening is that I’m not really making a bag. It’s a lie. It looks like I’m making a bag. Like when I’m doing this, this all looks like I’m making a bag. But here’s what’s really happening. Let me show you from behind what’s really happening. I’m going to put this file card inside of my bag so that you can see from behind what the real situation is. It’s this, there’s a little shelf here that’s being formed by me pulling up a little bit on some of the fabric here, but there’s a little shelf that that coin is going to sit in. Now that you understand what it is with just the file card, let me do it again, but with a coin. So again, I’m making this bag
Speaker 3: [Inaudible].
Alex: It looks like I’m just making a regular bag. But again, there’s a little, a little shelf that’s being formed here. If you look right here, you’ll see it. There’s a little shelf or that coin is just sitting right there.
Speaker 3: [Inaudible]
Alex: Right? And if I let go with the, the little pressure that I have here, which I’ll show you in a second, I can give this a little tap and I can make that coin just shoot right out on, on my fingertips and come away. And now I can just grab this and blow and it’s gone. Right? So let’s talk about how you fold this handkerchief to make this fake bag. You’re actually folding it in half diagonally first. And let me do the closeup camera here so we can do it on a table. So you can see everything that’s happening here and understand this and hopefully be doing this by the end of the night. I’m going to move this down. So it’s looking at the table a little bit more. I think that should do it right there. Okay, so here’s what’s happening is that you’re making this bag like this, you’re, or you’re making this diagonal fold like this.
Alex: You’re just folding it diagonally on itself. And what happens is that middle portion is going to become the top of the bag. And I’m going to fold this portion right here up, and I’m going to fold this portion right here up like this. But remember I’m doing this as I’m as I’m holding it, right? And then that’s the little channel right there that gets formed by making this fold and on. Let me turn this here to the camera so you can see again what it is. You can see that that’s just making that channel there and it’s just because I have the two ends coming up. That’s the middle of the diagonal fold on folding up and up like this, right? So that’s technically what you’re doing to make the full. Now let me show you how you’re making a gap so that you can make that little bit happen.
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Alex: So here’s a, I’m going to do the wide view again, just the, we can be clear and get all of this in frame. When I hold it like this and do this first diagonal, I’m going to let it drop from either my right hand and my left hand. And this just comes down to what’s dominant for you, but you let go with one so that you can grab that middle portion, which is the doubled fabric on itself so that you’re not holding it in this fashion. And then it’s going to transfer it to this so that I can make, as I’m, as I’m folding this, I’m going to make a bag, right? And what’s happening is I’m grabbing this extreme diagonal and I’m folding it up like this and I’m leaving that open right there. That’s where I’m going to drop the coin in, right?
Alex: So I transfer this to my other hand and I’m going to do the same thing with my other hand. I’m going to lift up this diagonal corner, but I’m going to do one extra bit here to gaff this and let me come close to the camera. What happens is this, is that my first and second finger going to scissor and hold everything at the top. My thumb is going to go inside the bag here and I’m going to lift a bit of fabric like that. And that’s what forms. When I drop this in here, that’s what forms this pocket, this shelf that if I let go with my thumb, the coin just drops out, right? So again, I’m catching it with my thumb here. I’m lifting like that and this is, let me do the closeup camera for this bit here so that you see what I’m talking about. Again, just hold the whole handkerchief out like this. Let me see if I can get it in frame here.
Alex: I’m going to let it fall. I’m going to grab the middles and fold up to the middle so that we can get this bag here. I want to get this bag and as I lift up this other corner and come up here and line everything up around, grabbing with my first and second finger, I’m scissoring so that I can grab everything like this. Let me see if I can get it in frame here. My thumb goes into the bag and I lift up just like that so that I form that shelf underneath. It’s just going in and I’m just lifting that bit of fabric like that. And I think it’s going to work better if we do a wide here. Alex is in two layers or one is, I’m taking both of the layers here so I’m going in there with my thumb like this and I’m lifting.
Alex: Let me come around to the other side of the camera so you can get that here. I’m going into that. Basically this is nearer of this, right? That bad right there. I’m going into on the other side and I’m just lifting with my thumb like that so that I make that Ryan walk gave me a hot tip of something I had on my shelf. I sort of embarrassed that I didn’t need to know about it, but Pat page has a handling on this, which is pretty wonderful and this might be helpful for you. So when you’re doing the thing and you’re making the bag, just like we’ve talked about before, instead of making the bit with your thumb, you do this, you grab the middle
Alex: With your third finger and your pinky and then you grab the back portions. When you form those, you’re going to just grab those with your thumb and forefinger on both sides. And now you have independent control of what is higher and what is lower. And you just move your thumb and then first finger up and let the the pinky and the third finger drop down and you’re forming the bag. And now as soon as I bring my my thumb and forefinger down, I’m letting that coin come out right? So now it’s just, sorry, it’s just a switch of position so that I can drop in like this, have the thing there. I just dropped my first finger and thumb down and now the coin comes right out, right?
Alex: So again, I can lift up like that with my thumb and forefinger, sort of dip it down with my third pinky and now I can just let it sort of just ride right out. Just like that. It totally works. Yeah. So both of those ways are an easy way to get it. I I have sort of in into the one with the thumb where I’m lifting with my thumb and dropping, but I think that’s just because that’s the way I learned it. Both of them are valid and both of them are excellent ways to get there where you’re stealing the coin out. And I have a couple of options on stealing the coin out. So the first thing is, is that I’m, I’m stealing when I’m doing this, I’m stealing with my right hand and when I’m doing that, obviously that allows for me to just put the coin in like this.
Alex: It’s inside the bag. I can say it’s really there and I can just leave this hand stationary and just grab one corner and drop everything else. Anything. Right. Which is beautiful, really wonderful. But there’s another option on this. And the other option is that you do the same thing. You make the bag, you put the thing up like this. And if you’re wearing a sport coat, you have another option for a complete vanish, which is really cool. Same thing. I would just switch positions and I could drop the thing in and I do the same van. I should just let that thing come out like that. And then I’d come up and then I can just let it drop like this and just show the whole, the whole thing’s gone. Show the fabric out like this. And then I can cross my hands like this and come back. And when I cross my hands like this, this is just the position where my coat pocket is, so I can just drop that coin right into my coat and come back around and show open fingers and nothing but a silk handkerchief. So was just another option on how to, how to make that coin go for real. Which I think if you’re going to vanish a coin, they want to see the other hand empty. So for what it’s worth, there it is. That’s really cool.
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Adam: Yeah. So, ah, you know, that’s so great Alex. And, and ever since that, like I have literally practiced, I have like devoted some major practice time to learning that and both versions of it as well. [inaudible] It’s such a practical, impromptu thing. You know, I’ve even tried with like paper napkins too and, and of course it doesn’t work as well. You know, it will work. You can get get it to work to some extent, but, but the, you know, the silky napkin certainly makes it, makes it better. But what a great, what a great impromptu miracle that, you know, you can just really a reminiscent of, of my, my idea of a professional magician whipping out a handkerchief, putting a coin in there and now it’s just gone. I mean, it’s a really beautiful thing.
Alex: Yeah. I’m really happy with that thing. Every time I do it, it gets stellar reactions. And I generally use it like I mentioned as, as a followup. You know, after I’ve done that, I’ve shown planning of coin magic here, but after I’ve done one of those coin routines, get down to one coin, you know, do a couple of mini populations with that single coin and then do a complete vantage. And that’s really a, just a cool way to do it. So I hope you guys try it cause it’s not that hard. It’s really a simple thing to do. You just got to learn the choreography of folding up that handkerchief. But once you have that, it’s, it’s locked in and try it with with a dinner napkin too with linen dinner napkins that they have it at nicer restaurants. You can generally get it to work with that. So, you know, you don’t have to use a handkerchief or, or a pocket square to necessarily perform that trick, but
Aaron: It’s a winner. It’s a total winner. I think it’s one of those things that, you know, kind of reminds me of silken silver, which is something that we have gone on a great expedition with and our friend Tom Frank did and his lecture as well that Alex mastered and reminds me of expansion, texture. You know, whenever working professionally, I love all the things that can be done with the pocket square. Absolutely loved them. And, and this is just one of the most beautiful things you could ever imagine doing with a real pocket square. Newell just mentioned. It would be great at some point to get a a teach in on the coin fold from Bobo, which is another really interesting, super practical thing you can do. You can grab a, you know, piece of paper or posted or,
Alex: Yes, it’s the same effect, right? You put it in there and you can rip it up and there’s confetti and there’s no coin. Right. Vantage didn’t have a smoke. It’s pretty good. Pretty good.
Aaron: Are you a coined folder, Steve? No, no, I’m not. That’s another one that I stopped doing after a couple of years in magic. And I sort of life for me, I don’t know why
Alex: A shiny object, you know, something new comes up and you go, that’s it. That’s the one I’m going to work on. Now I do. Well, back in the old days when I used to do gigs,
Steve: I would have stuff else. You know, the olden days, I used to have stuff in my pockets I’d carry around forever. I never, I never did. I never went to it. You know? And I guess that’s the true test, you know?
Aaron: Well, to me the coin fold is always like a utility thing, right? And so it is, so the real question is, you know, where do you want your coin to go? And I know Sproul is a huge fan, as is Adam of the coined nest that nested boxes. You know, a lot of people have seen those Lippincott boxes because everyone’s seen those Lippincott boxes was sort of locking boxes. I’m just out there and Catlin, but I wonder, you know, and when I think about it, how much I would perform prefer that or not to the massive boxes. For me, I sorta think the nested boxes sort of fits that magician archetype to me. You know, there’s something about having a, the ball of yarn and the nest boxes, just the hanging out there on stage. To me it’s, I don’t know, does anyone think the nest box is a better trick than a [inaudible]?
Alex: It’s a, it’s one of the first tricks that I saw someone do in front of a big group of people. I’m fortunate that I know a guy, you guys probably all know him, Ken Gar. He lived here, he lives here in Northern California and I saw him as one of my first examples of, of stage magic and he has a great signed bill inside of a nest of boxes that’s on display the entire time. And it’s, he’s a comedian, but the magic punches are common every single time he opens up another thing and he goes, there must be inside of this thing. And he opens up the next thing and well, what’s this? Maybe it’s inside of this thing. And you know, each of the, each of the layers were more nonsensical than the one before it. You know, he would, I don’t want to give it away at what he does, but you know, he’s gone down through all these layers. It’s not necessarily a box and then a box than a box, but just that idea, that impossibility of it’s inside the next thing. And then it’s inside how, how, like every time you just show the thing, it’s like you get hit in the head one more time with a brick. You know, it’s a great effect. I love it.
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Aaron: Absolutely. And it’s the kind of thing that you can do without being a stage magician. You can really make it play big and all really comes down to a how big a spectacle you can make of having the displayed yarn or, or stacks or whatever. And the vantage of a colon. So, I mean, when it all really comes down to is, is, is this vantage of a coin, the kind of thing that you would really use in those circumstances. And I have to say it’s about as magical look, there’s so many ways to make a coin disappear because it’s really those tricks. Lots of times the object doesn’t even really vanish, right? You know, you, you get the same effect. Most people would say if you take that coin, you just drop it in a jug of money and then just go right to the nest of boxes and start on unschooling the yard and then a box in a box and the box and the box in the box and the box in there, you get there.
Aaron: But if you can get that moment in the vantage to be really, really striking, yeah, you end up with a much stronger effect, you know? Well, let’s see here. What Newell says is a quarter in the nest of plastic boxes. He didn’t used to do it in Hollywood magic all the time. And of course that demonstrates the easiest version of the trick and the most standard. Buy it off the rack, spend a couple bucks and get the effect. Of course it devastates people. That’s right. It’s one other thing. No mentioned here I think is worth mentioning. Is anyone here on the panel love or know the Buddha money papers?
Steve: Oh, I love the Buddha money papers. That’s such a cool trick to sell this for a dollar 50 and it’s a fuller man. If you don’t know, there’s no way you’re going to figure that one out
Aaron: For the benefit of our members who can go ahead and just outline the effect for the members because I think it on the box. Have you never heard of the Buddha money papers? You don’t know that [inaudible]
Alex: He was demo King of a [inaudible]. Alex. I don’t remember it as well as you probably can between now and then you have a couple you have. It’s a couple of nests. It’s like a nest of boxes kind of, but it’s a, it’s paper. It’s basically like little post it notes without the sticky on it are folded up into quarters and it’s put it inside another piece of paper and it’s folded up and put in, sat on another piece of paper and it’s folded up. And you can put something inside there like a quarter inside the inner most folded up piece of paper. And then you snap your fingers and you open it up and open it up and it open it up and there’s a little note that says your corridors in your pocket or whatever. And it’s gone. There’s no quarter. It’s amazing. It’s, and it’s all just the top illogical thing that’s built into these little papers. It seems so innocent. And if, like I said, if you don’t know, you’ll never figure it out. It’s such a fooler it’s like that’s a great demo trick. Cause it’s like every time you do it everyone’s like, here’s my money. There we go. Yeah. Newell said, yeah, Skinner did it all the time. Four quarters to a $1 bill. There you go. So it can be a change. It could be a vanish, it could be anything. It’s
Aaron: And Misto South working and so sneaky, you know, and so we’re making yourself or buying for four bucks and then building the template. You know, that’s, that’s a Royal magic $5 classic. Totally.
Aaron: So let’s ask you out there, which of these which is your favorite coin vantage for a challenge, coin to impossible object. I would like to know quickly, I just want to make sure that everybody knows tonight we’re going to have another special exclusive living room lecture and of course this month where doing best to share with the magicians in need around the world and inviting them to join us for the Larry Wilmore living room lecture. Larry’s a famous comedy writer, producer. And it’s a very little known fact that he’s also an incredibly skilled, talented and creative magician. Tonight he’s going to be sharing with us stories from a life in Hollywood and TV and making great art and he’s going to get down and dirty and share with us the, the magic that he loves the most. And I for one, is very excited. So bring your deck of cards. If you’re going to join us for that one, it’s going to be super, super swell. Tomorrow we’re going to have a member mastermind. Adam, why don’t you if we have a grab a link
Adam: Yes. I will grab a link right now to give me a second. I’ll put it in chat for sure.
Aaron: And if you’re watching us on YouTube, thanks so much for watching this. Make sure to hit subscribe below the video and check back often because we’re sharing just a sliver of the fun that a Chondra community members are having every day, every week during this interesting time in our collective experience and a check back for more from us there or join us inside the club.
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