Magical Originalities
Ernest E. Noakes
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An Old Coin Favourite
A FAVOURITE trick of mine is "The Old Ball of Wool," but I dress it up as follows:-- I borrow a coin, "any coin from a farthing to a 5 pounds piece!" and point out the larger the coin, the greater the trick. Having been offered a coin, I request someone to take charge of it, and come forward to assist me. Perhaps if I give you one or two of the "remarks" I make, it may interest you. I request the person assisting me to state the details of the coin. He remarks "a penny," we will imagine; I ask him to name the date and also tell the audience if" he is sure he would know it again if he never saw it?" The reply is generally "Yes," until the smile of the audience wakes him up.
My next instruction to him is to take my pocket-knife and scratch his photograph upon the coin. As he cannot aspire to such ability in art, I suggest to him "scratching his name and address on the coin, but of course if he can't scratch his own name and address, scratch somebody else's." By this time the audience should be lightly smiling at the assistant. I now suggest that as he cannot write will he" make his mark on it--just like he signs his cheques. "Having had some mark placed on the coin, I ask him to hold the coin up so the audience can see his mark. As they cannot see the marking, I "switch on more light" by putting a match to the candle. I ask him if "he ever held a candle to the performer" (or should a young lady be assisting me I give her the candle and call her "the Angel of Light." I now very gravely request him not to spill the grease on the carpet, as it is my candle.
The wrapping up of the coin in flash paper, using the four-sided fold, now follows. The usual gag of hitting the coin inside the paper "upon the first wooden object" is worked, the parcel is changed to the left hand for someone to feel that the coin is really there, and in transferring it back to the right hand, the coin glides out of the fold into the left hand. The paper is "warmed,"--and the coin has vanished! I request assistant to refund a coin of the same value to the owner, and regret that the trick has ended in failure, owing to the assistant warming the coin too much. Now I ask him, is he scientific? Does he know anything about wireless telegraphy? doesn't he know "Mackeroni" invented the wireless message?
Meantime I have loaded the coin into my wireless "wire"--a ball of black wool. The wool is as thick as a lead pencil, and made up into a ball of four inches diameter. This rests upon a glass jug, and the fake is large enough to admit a five shilling piece. I advance to him with the ball and the jug, and request him to examine both. The jug I call the "crystal receiver," and the ball the "wireless wire." I request him to enter the receiver, walk round inside, turn it down side up, etc., "to prove it empty." He then places the ball on top of the jug, and I take the end of the ball to the other side of the stage. I warn him not to allow the ball to leave the jug, and as the ball revolves on the open top of the jug, a gentle snatch will cause the ball to jump and roll on the floor. This time he will of his own accord force the ball into the jug, when you draw attention to the "force of common intellect." The ball is now unwound, and the coin heard to fall in the jug. Coin is returned, etc.
When I first added this trick to my performance, my conscience (if a conjurer has such a thing) smote me for "going back" so far, but my schooling in the Art of Magic having taught me "It isn't what you do," etc., I had the audacity to risk it. I have been told by the dear little lad in front, who is also a conjurer, that "he knows the trick, but he can only do it with a shilling or a halfpenny, how can I do it with any coin?" and when I explain to him that I have a machine for wrapping the original coin inside the wool, that works by electricity under my back table, he congratulates me upon the strides Magic has made! It is the writers of the cheap books on Magic that make the awkward situations for the performer, and it is a pity that some of the "authors" who send out broadcast the secrets of magical performers, are not practical men, or not compelled to earn their living by presenting to the public those tricks of which they write explanations, and which they have borrowed unscrupulously.
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