http://www.stevensmagic.com/videoclips/

Here's the coin unique video demo, but it doesn't do justice to the effects that you can do with the coins.

I am in the UK and the Coin Unique I have is a £1/1p version. I tried coin in balloon with it but the precision edges often burst the balloons so I now use my PK ring and a 1 or 2p coin - In the UK these are steel core which is handy.

I also use my PK ring for separating Coin Unique. Have you tried coin thru beer mat or cofee cup? very easy and visual. However, as I said, UK copper coins are steel core so you can use (or give away) the coin that has passed through an object which always helps, I feel. You could always borrow a coin and do a switch, I suppose.

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I also use my PK ring for separating Coin Unique.
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same here

In the UK, all our 'copper' coins are steel shell so I do this with a 1p (my coin unique is £1/1p) stuck to my PK ring - it could just as easily be palmed. When the 1p disappears from under the glass, the hand holding the glass bottom is inverted to show the 1p has leapt through the solid base of the glas in to the magicians hand. Similarly, you could hold a hand under the table to show the 1p has dissolved through the table and been caught by the magician. Or, again using the PK ring, the £1 could be picked up from under the glass, placed on the 'ring hand' and with a magical pass, the 1p would reappear as the coin is separated. The disadvantage with this ending is you are left with unexaminable coins.

These sort of routines never quite satisfy me - why would you only make the 1p go through the glass, and not the £1? Why have two coins at all?

Incidentally, not all our copper coins are steel shell - only the newer ones.
But as the copper ones are worth more as copper than they are as coins, I don't suppose they will be around much longer.

I think it's pre 1983 they are not steel core but pretty much all others are.

I actually keep some very nicely polished older ones on me just in case someone suspects that magnetism is used - you can demonstrate that coins are NOT attracted to magnets as most people suspect this is the case anyway. I've never had to do it, but it's there just in case.

I agree that to magicians it is slightly suspect that only one coin disappears, but people do not question that in performance, I find. The attraction of the coin under the glass routine is that the coin disappears IN FULL VIEW of the spectator. That outweighs any question the spectator may have about why only one of the two coins vanished. The coin was there under a glass where it could not be interfered with and then, with no cover, it simply vanished. WOW!

OK, it takes no skill to perform (and I know a lot of Magicians poo-poo the idea of effects that do not require hours of practice - I'm a bit like that myself) but if you put it in the middle of a longer routine, it can be a reputation maker amongst lay people.

I do it as part of a long running gag where a 1p coin keeps disappearing and reappearing in all sorts of odd places and the specs love it.

Ah, incorporating it as part of something else is a good idea. I do a matrix with 1p coins. Maybe it could follow on from that, if I found a way of introducing the £1 as well. £1 coins seem a bit thick for most coin magic.

This is something I do occasionally. With the appearing and disappearing penny being a running thread through some of my routines, it can be a good way to get rid of penny no.5.

If your last 1p in the matrix is the Coin unique 1p, show it as a fifth coin (unheard of as an ending to coin matrix) and say "how did that get there?" If it's been disappearing and reappearing throughout your other routines, it will not be questioned, it will just be seen as another mystery reappearance. So ask to borrow a £1 coin, switch it with the other half of the gimmick and place a glass over the top of the £1/1p. Do the swirl and your penny has gone again. Pick up the £1 and switch it back for the spectators one and hand it back. The pesky penny has gone once more - this time in full view of everyone - and it can reappear at any point later in the routine.

The disappearing/reappearing penny goes down really well and gives a thread that runs through other routines and is very funny, particularly when the specs have begun to forget about it and, woops!, there it is again. I usually end a session by finally reappearing the penny and saying "well, I can't get rid of it, so you may as well keep it for luck" and hand it to one of the spectators.

It's just a bit of fun to aid continuity and give a theme to a session

Is Coin Unique simply a one phase routine wherein one coin vanishes?

Yes & No - think along the lines of magnetic S&S

I also use my PK ring for separating Coin Unique.
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same here
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Ditto. It's smoother and quicker and less noticable if others are around than trying to reset it the way they explain in the directions.

I like the gimmick. I don't use it as often as some of my other gaffed coins, (Hopping Halfs, Flipper Coin, Cigarette/Pen/Dollar Thru Quarter, Dime & Penny, etc.), but I never leave home without it! Good idea & well-made. Mine doesn't "talk" as much as apparently some other sets do. Worth the price in my opinion.