Magical Originalities
Ernest E. Noakes
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Some Other Coin MovesWHILST mentioning coin tables, I made one for the "King of Koins," who used a borrowed hat for his act. When all the coins had been caught and the trick was finished, he used to pour the coins on to the table to show that the hat was none the worse for being used as a mint, and then tipping the table forward so that the coins were heard to run he placed the hat to catch them, and offered them to the owner of the hat, but. of course the hat was empty. In this case, a flap, which worked on an inclined plane principle, was opened at the moment the hat touched the front of the table, and the table was tilted for the coins to roll into the hat. Underneath the flap was a bag with a piece of card-board at the bottom, and the illusion of the coins falling into the hat was complete.
The rattle of the coins, and the fall into the" bottom of the hat" was a perfect example of misdirection by sound.
Another "Aerial Treasury" I once hurriedly "invented" was for a demonstration to the "Magic Circle." The lecturer, who was down to give his lecture on coins, was unfortunately unable to keep his appointment, and I was requested to fill the breach. My "Money Catching" item was very "saucy." I used a glass jam jar, which stood upon a plate. The jar was inverted to prove its emptiness, and my hands were examined to see that no fakes existed, and as my audience were all conjurers, you can quite imagine they "knew." Then drawing attention to the empty glass jar, I simply turned it over and started right away catching my coins. I think thirty were caught, shot out into a white bowl and passed down for examination.
The glass jar did stand on a plate. The plate was only used to "still the thought" that the table might be assisting, but in this case it was not. If my reader will study a three-pound glass jam jar for a second or more, he will note that when the jar is upside down there is a very useful depression, wherein six coins can safelv repose without being seen from below, because of the bend in the glass, or from the front because of the depression. One of these six coins had a hole in it and a thread attached, see drawing. After I have proved my hands empty, I picked up the inverted jar with my right hand, grasping the bottom of the jar, which gave me the load. The first four coins were openly dropped into the jar, which stood on the centre table; the fifth coin had the thread attached and was thrown in from some little distance. The sixth coin was vanished towards the jar and "heard and seen therein" by the assistant working the thread. About fifteen were really dropped into the jar, the rest being in the white bowl all the time, and when the fifteen from the jar were shot in with them, the audience could prove for themselves that thirty had been caught and placed in the jar.
There is nothing new in a coin being harnessed to a thread, but when a large sized glass jar is used and the assistant practises taking up the slack with his left hand, so that the coin is just on the tension, and by striking the thread with a light piece of stick with the other hand, the falling and rattling of the coin is quite in keeping with what the performer is telling his audience.
I should like to continue about coins, but as my idea of this book was to give a varied number of practical tricks and wheezes to performers, I must leave this subject and dip into other tricks where "cards and money" do not further tempt me.
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