Later Day Tricks
A. Roterberg
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The Vanishing Coin Tube
THE apparatus of this title is a clever and inexpensive device which will recommend itself to my readers on account of its very simplicity and the fact that the tube may be examined before and after the trick.
The tube is a nickel plated one with a bottom, which however is inserted at a trifling distance from the lower end of the tube, the exact distance being the height of a half dollar. The inside of the tube is of the same diameter as that of a half dollar and will just accommodate eight of them. In introducing the trick, the performer first passes the cylinder for inspection and after receiving it back secretly attaches to the sunken bottom a half dollar which is waxed on one side and which the performer had palmed. Eight half dollars are then borrowed and are placed in the open end of the tube, exactly filling it. A lady is now requested to spread her handkerchief on a tray handed her by the performer, who places the tube in the center of the handkerchief. While she spreads out the handkerchief, the conjurer has ample opportunity to turn the cylinder upside down, so that the single half dollar stuck to its bottom is now uppermost. In placing the cylinder on the handkerchief, the eight borrowed coins remain palmed in the hand. The four corners of the handkerchief are now gathered up around the cylinder and the lady is then requested to hold the handkerchief in this fashion. In lifting up the handkerchief the cylinder inside of it will fall over, because it is top heavy, and upon opening the handkerchief a moment later at the performer's request, the lady will see the empty tube only, from the bottom of which the attached half dollar is then secretly removed, leaving the tube once more ready for inspection.
The reappearance of the vanished marked half dollars can take place in any manner the performer sees fit, as there are numerous cleverly constructed pieces of apparatus that can be used for the purpose.
A simple way is to borrow a hat, holding it in the same hand in which the coins are palmed, while the other hand, which contains the half dollar detached from the tube, makes believe to magically extract a coin from the handkerchief enveloping the tube. This coin is apparently thrown into the hat, in reality though it is palmed, while the hand holding the hat drops one of the palmed marked half dollars into it. This is repeated as many times as there are coins palmed, the coins being then returned to their owners and duly identified by them.
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