Meanwhile, if you really want a COOL coin trick that doesn't need any gaffs, requires minimal sleight-of-hand, is totally examinable if need be, and only costs about $5 (for five half dollars and a cloth dinner napkin), check out the May issue of Magic Magazine.

Curtis Kam has posted a very cute effect using the old "Gypsy Switch" move (a variation of which move also appears in Bobo's "Modern Coin Magic"). SETH

That's indeed a great trick, but not something taht I could re-sell myself..

I agree, you couldn't really pitch Kam's coin effect, because it involves sleight-of-hand (a finger palm) and timing (the one-ahead principle); there's nothing mechanical about it.

Although the Svengali Deck can be improved with a little sleight-of-hand (a DL, among other things), it is a mechanical effect and essentially works itself. So when I tell the specs that "the cards do all the work for you," it's basically true.

Almost everyone starts out as a "push-button magician," and gradually picks up the necessary sleights, misdirection and timing needed to be a real magi. And as Don Driver is fond of saying, "A pitchman is NOT a magician!" In fact, you want to convey the opposite impression -- that anybody can do the trick; otherwise, folks won't buy it. SETH

The dynamic coins sell well but it is not a grafting line. It is what we call in the business "a blagging line" Now I suppose I had better interpret all this language. I only talk British pitchman's language which is a combination of cockney rhyming slang, Yiddish and words spelled backwards. "Grafter" is the British word for "pitchman" "Line" means "product" Thus a "grafting line" means a "Pitching product" To "blag" means to work away quietly to ones and twos and not draw a crowd. The Dynamic Coins is a "blagging line" In other words it is suitable for quiet demonstrations. If you are "grafting" or "pitching" non stop (and it should be non-stop) the dynamic coins will get in the way and are not relevant. It is more suitable for an intimate soft sell. I don't like the item because it gives away a priciple of magic but it does sell quite well.