Coin Magic Archives - Ken Theriot Magic

The Coin Roll

April 28, 2015 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

The coin roll across the knuckles or fingers is another common magician’s flourish. Heck, lots of people – magician and non-magician alike – can do this. I recently saw an episode of the TV show Bones where a character (a gambler) was doing it VERY well.

As with most things in magic, this takes a lot of practice. And my primary goal on this site is to give beginners and idea how much practice “a lot” actually means. As I am a beginner myself, my hope is that as I gain proficiency in the skills of a magician, I can share my progress here on this site.

I recently wrote a post about my terrible (currently) card spring. Today we’ll look at my pathetic coin roll:-P. Below is a video of how well I can do this after about 20 hours of practice. That’s obviously a total over the past few months. I did not sit in a room for 20 hours straight practicing this. Though I could have, I guess. Anyway, take a look at where I am on April 28th, 2015. I’ll post again when I’ve done about 40 hours.

My Crimp Change Progress

April 24, 2015 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

This is a move I learned from Marion Boykin (MB, for short). I’ve been practicing it for a about 2 months and it still is not quite there.

The most noticeable problem is that my hand wave is too large a motion. I need to really make that smaller and less “in your face.” Also, though it doesn’t show in the video, I can’t successfully do it all the time yet. I have to think about it as I’m doing it, too. These are both indications that not all the little moves that make up the Crimp Change have sunk into unconsciousness yet. That’s how you know when you really have a skill down. Think about driving a car or riding a bike. You don’t have to think about all the things your body has to do to turn or stop. You just do it. It is now an unconscious action. Same thing with musical instruments and any skill, really.

The Crimp Change was developed by Marion Boykin and you can learn it in one of his videos on Vinny Marini’s site here: http://www.vinnymarini.com/download/crimpchange.html

My New Medieval Coin – The Henry VIII Testoon

April 18, 2015 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

I am part of a medieval re-creation group called The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), and I plan many of my magic performances to take place in that group – at SCA events. That being the case, I would rather not do my coin magic using 20th century Kennedy half-dollars or even 19th century Morgan silver dollars.

Magic effectively stopped being a closed art when a book was published in 1584 called The Discoverie of Witchcraft, by Sir Reginald Scot. He was trying to show that what people thought were supernatural deeds attributable to witches were actually illusions that were frequently performed by magicians (jugglers) and were only tricks. So the book basically (even though Scot said he was sorry to have to do it) exposed many secrets of magicians.

Obviously that did not kill magic as a performing art. And many magicians look to “Discoverie” as a valuable resource and part of magic history. One of the things I like about the book is that it serves as documentation for some of the props that magicians used. In one section of the book, Scot says

“You may, with the middle or ringfinger of the right hand, conveie a testor into the palme of the same hand, & seeming to cast it awaie, keepe it still.”

A “testor” is another word used for the “testoon,” a coin used in England in the late 1500s. It is not really practical to get my hands on original Henry VIII testoons, not only because they are hard to find and expensive, but also because they are usually pretty mangled and beat up. Coin magic often requires the magician to have several coins that look th same. So I was lucky to find a reproduction of the Henry VIII testoon on eBay.

I received my first one in the mail yesterday and boy is it shiny:). That makes it perfect for coin magic. These particular reproductions are from “The Millionaire’s Collection” – 30,000 coins that were hallmarked by the London Mint. I got mine for $22 (US). So it will be a while before I get as many as I want:-P. But I can at least do single-coin routines at SCA events now without using 20th century coins.

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