Cast a Shadow

"Cast a Shadow" is the starting point for this routine. The routine is by Eric DeCamps and has been published on page 1648 in the Apocalypse Vol.12, No.6. The click pass is by Sol Stone. I changed the last vanish for the Himber Vanish by Richard Himber because it put me in a position where it is much easier to reload the coin into the clean hand for the first production. The production from the finger palm is by Apollo Robins and he teaches it in the Cultural Exchange DVD. A good looking production I think. The angles on this routine are quite good. It can be done surrounded, but then not everybody would get to see the effects. After the first production two different Shuttle Passes happen. The first one is the classic David Roth version but the second one the "Flying Shuttle Pass" created by Jay Sankey, which if possible should be the preferred method, as it really looks like the coin fly from the "other" hand. The routine itself makes heavy use of the Ramsay subtlety but I think the pace of the routine is fast enough to support the choice.

This is the sort of routine that best works with smaller coins. For the sake of the visibility in the video I chose bigger coins to perform with. But best would be quarter sized coins. That makes the handling of certain shifts of the stack of coins to a needed position much easier. And the chance of talking is minimized a lot. It's impromptu and borrowing the coins will make the coins above suspicion giving the performer the credit.

Coin And String

This is a routine I strung together using the best methods I could find for this type of magic. Let's mention the basics first: There are two ways of doing this. One is using just one object, like most ring and string routines and the second way of doing this is using a dupe. The drawback to the first one is, that you have to go through rather goofy phases of linking and unlinking, while the later version has the drawback of being to obvious. The second problem can be solved by attacking the issue with "cleanliness". And what better way to hide the second coin, by not using a second coin, but a familiar and common coin gimmick.

So going from there I went through my pile of books and read. The basic routines that I took "phases" from are by Sol Stone, Troy Hooser and Jay Sankey.

If you check out Vol.1 No.3 of the Apocalypse at page 30 you'll find the routine called "Stung Coin" by Sol Stone. Which is a nice prototype but gets needlessly lost in methods in my humble opinion. But there is a nice way to use the Downs Palm to hide the second coin. This routine was my starting point to get to the routine you see in the video. The next influence and I'd say the major influence is the "Charming Chinese Challenge" by Troy Hooser. You can find the routine in the wonderful book Destroyers by Joshua Jay. It starts at page 21. My little video doesn't do it justice, but the "Spell Bound Unlink" looks a lot better if you use a felt ribbon instead of the big string I used in the video. The ribbon seems to fall right through the coin. Another phase I took from Hooser's routine is the "Mid-Air Link" which is hard to do on camera but is so great in real life. It seems like there is no way trickery could take place. Especially if you do it with a certain level of nonchalance. And finally Jay Sankey has a wonderful routine called Leaving Home. It is published on his "The Very Best of Jay Sankey" DVD (Volume 3) He uses the Strinking Vanish by David Williamson ("Williamson Wonder" by Richard Kaufman) in a nice offbeat way to create the illusion of a link. That is the last phase I did in the video. It is the most challenging move in my routine, but worth the effort of learning it. The very first link is mine, I have not found that in any books I own, but I like it.