Choosing Coins for Magic Tricks

Video Transcript

" Good evening, my name is Wayne Phelps. This is expertvillage.com, and I’m a professional magician. Welcome to coin magic basics 101. Tonight I’m going to teach you the handling and manipulations of coins to produce simple magical effects. When working with coin magic, it’s important that you find coins that fit the size of your hand. If you’re a younger student in magic in your teens or may be a little bit younger you might find that larger coins don’t work well. They’re too cumbersome, they’re too bulky, you can’t hide them, you can’t maneuver them very well. So you might find that a smaller coin will work well for your hand size. I’ve got four types of coins laid out here on the table. Let me go over a little bit about each coin and why I use them. First, I have a copper coin. A lot of magic has a lot of flash and flair when you show two different coins. Coppers are great for contrasting against the normal silver coins that people see on stage and in close up. The type of copper I use is an English penny. I like it just because it feels good, it has a nice weight and it gives a good contrast. I usually don’t polish my coppers, I just let them get a little bit of tarnish on it and it just gives it a better look. When I perform with larger coins I prefer silver dollars. It’s larger than your standard coin. Silver is heavier than your standard coin and they’re usually smoother. Now silver dollars I like because of my larger hands, I find I can palm silver dollars a little bit better than any another coin. It allows me to do some pretty amazing things. Not to mention the fact that the weight of these coins are a little bit heavier than your standard coins that feel better for me. You might find out that you don’t like the silver dollar you might prefer something little bit smaller but for stage productions, stage magic, etc. magic for a large crowd these are easily visible and are great coins to have. You can pick these up at any coin store. When working with close up magic I prefer a walking liberty silver half dollar. These can be purchased just like silver dollars at any coin store. The silver halves are smoother than your average coin because silver wears down like that. They shine up really good so if you put a little bit of polish they’re very noticeable and they’re a little bit heavier than your standard half dollar. Lastly we have Kennedy half dollars. These can be purchased at any bank at 2 for a dollar. These are great because they are standard, everyone recognizes the Kennedy half dollar. They’re a larger size and a quarter but it’s not as heavy as a silver piece. Find coins that work well for you, find something that’s comfortable in your hands and when you’re ready just move on and check out some of the things that you can do with these coins. "