Learn A Trick: Make A Signed Coin Appear Anywhere

The magician asks their friend for a quarter. Without touching the coin, they hand the friend a Sharpie and ask them to draw a smiley face upon it. When they are done, the magician carefully takes the coin and writes the spectator’s initials on the other side.

Next comes the vanish; right at the fingertips, the coin seems to melt into thin air. Pausing just long enough to let the vanish sink in, the magician leads the friend across the room.

At the far side, resting on a table is the spectator’s phone. Before the magician can point it out, the spectator notices that their phone is hovering millimeters above the table. Something is under the phone—it’s the coin. The magician hasn’t been anywhere near the phone. In fact, they gesture for the spectator to carefully lift it up off the coin.

The friend reacts with joy as the phone is removed to reveal their quarter with their initials upon it. The magician picks up the coin and delicately flips it over to reveal the smiley face on the other side. It’s worth noting that the magician is wearing short sleeves and their hands are totally empty besides the coin as they show both sides.

What’s amazing is that you can immediately hand out the coin to the friend for a thorough inspection.

That’s it, that’s the trick.

The Secret

It’s so devilishly simple, and I love it so much. You can carry this with you and be ready always. Let’s get into the secret…

The gimmick you’ll need for this trick is one expanded shell. That’s a special milled coin that’s hollow on one side and also stretched in such a way that it will actually fit over a regular-sized coin. It’s important you use an expanded shell and not a regular coin shell so that you can perform this trick with a borrowed coin. You can buy these coin gimmicks in most currencies.

So that’s the secret gimmick, how does the trick work? Well, you’re going to want to start before the trick by signing your friend’s initials on the expanded shell. Then go ahead and hide that coin somewhere face up (that bit is crucial). A really good place to do this is under an object like a phone or a book. This is good for two reasons.

1. The coin gimmick remains flat and unexposed. It would easily move and flip if you placed it in a bag or someone’s pocket.

2. This ensures the spectator’s hands are busy when you ask them to lift the object up.

So then you perform the trick. You borrow or present a coin that matches your expanded shell duplicate. You ask the spectator to mark one side of the coin however you like. It’s crucial that they mark the opposite side to the visible side of your expanded shell. You might ask them to draw a funny face over the face of the coin as way of directing them. Asking them to sign over the face of the coin could be enough.

You’ll take the coin and mark the other side in an identical fashion to the marking you made earlier on the duplicate expanded coin shell. If you know the spectator’s initials ahead of time, do this. If you don’t know them, write your own initials and have them write theirs on their side. If you have confederates with you, get them to sign the other side of the coin to match the expanded shell.

Then you vanish the coin however you wish. You’ll likely use sleight of hand because you will need to secretly retrieve the coin and finger palm it next. You’ll have plenty of time to do this between the vanish and reappearance as you all walk across the room.

The coin needs to be held with their side of the coin pressing into your fingers and your side of the coin facing yourself. If you choose to vanish the coin without it ever leaving your dominant hand, then you can have it facing the correct way from before you vanished it.

When you get to the phone, point out that it’s raised slightly if they do not notice. It’s crucial that they recognize it’s under there long before you go near the coin. You need to lock this moment into their memory.

Ask them to lift up the phone to reveal the coin. They will react when they see the signed side of the coin sat facing up on the table. It’s a lovely little method because there’s no reason to question why the coin landed your side up when it reappeared. It’s magic, it’s random, who cares which way up it is.

Their hands are busy holding the phone and their eyes are busy looking at you or other friends for their reaction. With the real coin in your dominant hand, reach down and pick up the coin fairly with two fingers of your non-dominant hand. You’re going to place the coin down into your dominant hand at the same time as you fairly rotate and extend your dominant hand to be palm open.

During this motion, you actually secretly place the expanded shell that was on the table over the top of the genuine coin in your hand. Doing so makes them appear to be just one coin. If you did every step correctly, you now have two perfectly empty hands besides what appears to be one normal coin laying on your palm. One side of the snug coins will be signed by you and the other will be signed by the spectator.

Use your non-dominant hand to flip the coin over and reveal the marking on the other side. When they’re satisfied there’s one coin and it’s theirs, turn to show the coin to others and throw the coin to the other hand, or simply drop the coin on the table. As you do so, keep a palmed grip such that the gimmick remains safely behind in your hand. You’re left with a regular examinable coin to hand to your friends or leave on the table.

That’s it. That’s the trick.