Sweet Cents
by Andrew J. Pinard

This quick and visual routine ("a sweet coin routine that makes cents") reads long but is actually performed in under three minutes, can be used anywhere in your performance, and plays particularly well in restaurants and strolling situations. Adults love the magic and the reactions, and if there are kids around, they get candy!

Effect: A borrowed coin transforms into a penny, the penny grows in size, vanishes, reappears, shrinks back into its normal size, vanishes, reappears behind a spectator's earlobe, vanishes once again, makes another appearance from a spectator's nostrils, and finally transforms into several dollar-size chocolate pennies which are distributed to all.

Materials: Penny, jumbo penny, hold-out, stash of chocolate pennies. I perform in a vest with two pockets. The hold-out is pinned on the inside right back side of the vest. The jumbo penny is positioned in the hold-out tail-side out. The penny is placed in the left vest pocket, and the chocolate pennies are placed in the right vest pocket.

Performance: Has anyone got a penny, nickel, dime, quarter, golden dollar, or krugerand I can borrow? [While people are searching for change, retrieve the penny from your left pocket and transfer it to your right hand.] Thanks! [Retrieve the proferred coin with the "dirty" hand.]

What's this? A quarter? Do you know what you can buy for quarter? Not a heck of a lot these days? Not a heck of a lot! About all you can buy is a gumball! How old are you? 9? You know what? When I was your age, I was nine. Weird how that works, huh? Actually, when I was nine, gumballs only cost one cent. [Execute "The Bobo switch" (J.B. Bobo's Modern Coin Magic, page 10) changing the borrowed coin for the penny under the action of tossing the coin from right hand to left-the borrowed coin ends up in thumb palm. The coin is tossed into the open palm, but the audience generally doesn't perceive the transformation until it is directly brought to their attention.]

Do you know what this is? A penny! Do you know who is on the front of the penny? [Using the left thumb, slide the penny to the fingertips, then openly transfer the penny to the right-hand fingertips to display to people on the right.] Abraham Lincoln. Do you know which president he was? Sixteenth. All right, here is the hard one: how many Lincolns are on a penny? One, no! Two! One on the front and one in the monument on the back. Can you see him? Let me make it a little easier for you. [Retrieve the jumbo penny from the holdout (the jumbo penny should be tail-side against the fingers, due to the orientation in the hold-out), hold it in semi-classic palm and wave your right hand across your outstretched left palm (currently displaying the regular penny tail-side up). As the right hand crosses over the slightly-cupped left hand, it releases the jumbo penny so it lands on the palm, tail-side up over the regular penny which remains in the palm, concealed beneath the jumbo penny. It remains in left-hand finger palm during the next move.]

Of course, when you stretch a coin this much it become flexible. [Bending move.] Here, try! Yeah, I know. It didn't work for me the first time either. [Re-take the jumbo penny in your right hand.]

Hold your hands together palm up. [Allow the penny to slip from classic palm to the pad of your middle finger still curled into a loose fist. Place the jumbo penny on the spectator's hand as you revolve the left hand palm up, using the spectator's palm-up hands as cover. The left middle finger presses the penny against the back of the spectator's hand allowing the other fingers to spread and grip as necessary.]

I'm going to make the penny go through the palm of your hands. If you watch closely, you will see the trapdoor open, the red and white corpuscles moving back forth, the penny going through and finally, the trapdoor slam shut. You have to watch real close though. On the count of three. One, two… three! [The next few moves depend on an unhesitating rhythm. On the count of "one," the right hand raises up to the eyebrows and comes down again, gently striking the spectator's palms with the coin all the while keeping a focused gaze on their palms. On the count of "two," the right hand repeats the previous action, this time raising the coin to your hairline. On the final count, with every iota of your focus on the "trapdoor" about to open in the spectator's hands, the right hand goes up one final time, leaves the jumbo coin balanced on the head and-without breaking the rhythm-brings the hand down and strikes the spectator's palms. Pause for a beat while the spectator realizes that the coin no longer is above their hands. Before the pandemonium erupts, say "Don't move! Keep your eyes on your hands!" When attention is focused on their hands, allow the coin to slide off the top of your head and fall onto their hands. Use your right hand to position and partially cover their hands so that the falling coin strikes the fleshy part of the palm and not the fingers. As the coin falls, look skyward, so when the spectator recovers and looks up to see where the coin came from, the image they see is open ceiling, rather than the top of your head. This helps to add to the mystery of the re-appearance of the coin. (See also "The Cranium Vanish," Modern Coin Magic, page 42.)] I should have thrown it higher!

[As the spectators all look skyward with you, the hands drops down to the side, the left hand relaxing and allowing the regular penny to slip back down into finger palm, while the right hand ditches the jumbo coin into the right rear pocket and comes back out palm-down with thumb underneath as if still holding the jumbo coin. As attention is refocused down, the hands come together, with the right hand apparently placing the jumbo coin onto the left hand, positioning the right hand palm down over the left hand, sandwiching the jumbo coin between the palms. Throughout these moves, the regular penny goes along for the ride.] Put your right hand on top of my hands. Place your other hand under my hands and squeeze. Owww! Let go! Not so tight! He squeezed so hard she made the penny small again! [Reveal the penny.]

Here, you can keep this as a souvenir… [Put-and-take/retention vanish from right hand to left. The right hand drops to the side and the left hand moves toward the spectator and makes to drop the coin into the spectator's hand. They will proffer their palm-up hand to catch the coin and catch only air as the left hand opens. Look to another spectator, then back, and then notice the missing coin.] What did you do with it? Did I give it to you? I didn't give it to you, did I? [During this exchange, you gesture palm up to a spectator on your left, and then your hands apparently pat your pockets looking for the missing coin in the following order: left front, right front, left back and right back. On the last "pat," the right hand tosses the penny from the right hand to the left behind your back (a wonderfully deceptive and not-as-difficult-as it-sounds move detailed as "Behind the Back" in J.B. Bobo's Modern Coin Magic on page 36). With experience, it will appear that to the spectators that the hands never leave their sight. The penny should land in left-hand finger palm.]

The I-Quit-ment

I now perform a move I call the "I-quit-ment." After the pat-down, both hands fall relaxed at the sides. I then bring the right hand up palm up and glance at it quizzically. In concert, the hands come together, the right hand turning palm down as it moves down while the left hand moves up and turns palm up in a single simultaneous pivoting motion. As the fingers come together, mid-pivot, the right thumb rides along the third phalanxes of the left hand, contacts the inner-most edge of the penny and presses against it, tipping the penny up on its edge. The penny, levered up is then clipped into right-hand thumb palm as the left hand finishes is pivot to full palm-up position. The palm-down right-hand fingers tap the empty left-hand palm for emphasis. This whole combination of moves, combined with a quizzical demeanor (as if you truly do not know where the coin has gone) is a thoroughly deceptive exchange that will firmly convince even the most skeptical spectators that you could not be retaining the coin (even though you have it in your right hand). The photographs below show in greater detail the action that appeared in the May 2002 issue of MAGIC magazine and shows both the audience and performer perspective.

Glance around mildly perturbed and then pretend to notice something just behind the spectator's head.] Don't move! [You now produce the coin from behind the spectator's ear in a manner similar to the way you concealed the regular penny beneath the spectator's hand. Transfer the coin from thumb palm to fingertip rest and reach palm down past their head and pivot the hand palm up such that the coin, balanced on the middle finger, is tucked behind the spectator's ear and slowly draws the coin out from behind the lobe, fingers wide-spread. Perform the coin slide vanish from The Tarbell Course in Magic, Volume One, page 71. Beginning with the coin in your open right palm, tip your right finger tips toward the floor to your left towards your waiting left hand. The coin slides down from the right palm to the fingertips and the left hand comes over palm down to apparently pick up the coin from the right fingertips as it arrives. The right hand drops to the side (coin in loose finger palm) as the left hand continues to the spectator and apparently drops the coin into their waiting hand. Once again, you should get a big reaction, often with the spectator checking behind their ear.] You have a hard time holding onto things! [The key to performing these vanishes convincingly is to think of the motions not as coin vanishes, but rather mere transfers from hand to hand for the purpose of giving the coin to the spectator.] Hold your hands palm up again. [Use both hands to re-position their hands, right hand coin concealed beneath their arm.] Lean in over your hands. [Use your palm-down right hand to grasp their shoulder and gently draw the spectator in.] Gently blow through your nose. [The right hand gently grasps the tip of their nose. As they blow, you release the coin so it falls into their palm. Under the response, the right hand drops to the side, dips into the pocket and grasps a few chocolate pennies and holds them in loose finger palm (as many pennies as kids at the table). At the same time, grimace, pick up the coin from the spectator's palms in the left hand and offer it back to the person who loaned it to you.] He doesn't want it either! [Openly transfer the coin to the right-hand fingertips and address the spectator who loaned you the coin.] Can I give this to these guys? Wait, I can't give one coin to four kids! [Execute "The Bobo switch" (J.B. Bobo's Modern Coin Magic, page 10), tossing the chocolate pennies into the left hand while retaining the regular penny in right-hand thumb palm. Loosely close the left hand into a fist around the coins delaying the transformation.] How about I make it four… big coins! These are made of chocolate, if it is all right with your parents you can have them for dessert. [Reveal the chocolate coins by fanning them in your hands, then passing them out one by one. Clean up by transferring the penny from hand to hand and ditching back into the left-hand vest pocket. Re-set the jumbo penny in transit to another table.]

Endnotes: This routine came about through much trial and experimentation and evolved over time. I did not research ideas and drop them in whole cloth from specific sources, but rather made use of the moves I learned over years of study. I am very concerned when teaching my pieces that I provide adequate citations to works that may be readily available to the student of magic. Additionally, I am very concerned with crediting people when they have influenced my own work, whether through a move or even just an idea. This information is not of value to our paying audiences, but invaluable to future generations of magic students. It is important when crediting not only to provide appropriate recognition for other's work, but also to help the student of magic see the process behind the creation and adaptation of new routines based on previous work.

In addition to the specific sources mentioned in the work above, I must mention my good friend David Oliver from Massachusetts. David, a full-time performer and product reviewer for Genii, has some wonderful work with jumbo coins in his lecture notes, Oliver's Twists. Some of David's ideas are incorporated into my routine, specifically his approach on the transformation of a coin to a jumbo coin, the subsequent "bending" of the coin, and the vanish of the jumbo coin on top of the head. The transformation I use is based on a "wave-your-hand-across-the-palm-and-a-coin-appears" production I have been performing since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. The specifics of David's handling of the transformation are different, but the notion is the same. The vanish of the jumbo penny on top of the head is something I originally learned from Bobo, but would not have necessarily thought of doing with the jumbo penny without having seen his piece, which was the first I had seen a jumbo coin vanished in this way. David tells me that he has heard tell of an upstate New York performer by the name of Al Cohen (no, another Al Cohen), who used to vanish an ashtray in this manner. In his notes, David also relates the necessity of safety when dropping a heavy jumbo coin onto a spectator's hands, as he once had a woman's fingernail break off in performance. Ouch!

Thanks to everyone who has influenced my work as a performer. I perform for a living, but am committed to remain a perpetual student. We can always improve!