Conjuring Credits

The Origins of Wonder

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Sliding Coin Vanish

There are several coin vanishes (or false transfers) that feature letting the coin slide down the fingers and apparently into the opposite hand, creating a variety of retention-of-vision illusions. Possibly the earliest application of the idea is in a coin vanish attributed to Max Malini in Stars of Magic, 1952, p. 156. Here the coin makes a short slide from the base of the fingers onto the inner phalanx of the fourth finger.

Jardine Ellis increased the distance of the slide from the palm to the inner phalanges of the fingers, where the coin is finger palmed; see J. N. Hilliard's Greater Magic, 1938, p. 671.

John Mulholland executed the same vanish with one small change: Instead of finger palm, he gripped the coin by its opposite edges between the first and fourth fingers; see Arthur Buckley's Principles and Deceptions, 1948, p. 81.

Giacomo Bertini lets the coin slide even farther, from the palm to the tips of the fingers, where it is kept in fingertip rest; see Giacomo Bertini's System of Amazement by Stephen Minch, 2018, p. 73.