I'm a hobbyist magician interested in finding a nice handling that will produce the effect of progressively squeezing a coin into oblivion. Specifically:

Show a half-dollar, and "squeeze" it into a quarter.
"Squeeze" the quarter into a dime.
"Squeeze" the dime into invisibility (vanish the dime).
Bring the half-dollar back and end clean.

The ideal routine for me is one that I can do sleeves up, no gimmicks, pure sleight of hand. I have a general idea of how I'd do it, but some of the crucial details are missing; I'd like to see how some professionals have handled what is surely an explored effect.

Thank you!

Look in Bobo's. There are a couple of methods that you can put together in order to get what you want.

What are your general ideas you mentioned?

Thanks!

Jim

Sorry if I was a little vague. As a newbie to the forum, I'm not sure how much detail is considered tasteful WRT revealing techniques or methods.

The way I envision this is to:

1. Explain that I'm about to demonstrate a feat of strength (or alchemy, or something).
2. Bobo switch the half dollar for a quarter while pattering about Vaudevilian strong-man shows (or whatever I chose above)
3. Come up with a justification for going to my pocket, ditch half, load dime.
4. Explain that you're going to squeeze the half down to a quarter.
5. Reveal the quarter
6. Pick up quarter in right hand and do a thumb-palm retention, dropping dime in left. (POSSIBLY doing a Bobo complete vanish of the quarter, but as a hobbyist, all my performances are impromptu wearing whatever I have on... usually a pocketless t-shirt)
7. Reveal dime
8. Vanish dime
9. Find justification to go back to pocket and ditch dime, grab the half, reveal half in some magical manner.

The sketchy details for me are:
1. Finding a justification to go the pocket in step 3
2. If I don't do a complete vanish in step 6, then I'm stuck with a quarter in my right. This limits my vanishing options a bit, or makes me repeat the somewhat awkward transfer of a coin from left to right back to left (faked) for the vanish.
3. Finding a justification to go back to the pocket in 9 to bring back the half

I feel like my method could work, but feels clumsy to me, and lacks a certain finesse. It seems like just a bunch of switches that all look the same, along with two highly suspicious pocket moves.

That's why I'm wondering if there are any published routines out there I could purchase and study to get ideas.

IllusionsMichael,

You may want to redefine your concept of "progressively squeezing a coin into oblivion". Going from a Half dollar to a quarter to a dime would be viewed by spectators as a transformation effect and not as the same coin being squeezed into oblivion. Whereas, going from a regular size Half dollar to smaller size Half dollars would represent your theme. Penny-size Kennedy Halfs and mini Kennedy Half coins (smaller than dime size) can be purchased from most magic dealers.

You may want to look at the marketed effect: SILVER EXTRACTION (by Vernet) for similar ideas / effects.

I recall an effect (Ultimate Transpo ? by Hank Lee Magic) whereby a silver cube is squeezed into a ball, then flatten into a blank coin sphere and then changed into a Kennedy Half. Though this effect was done with a few gimmicks, I once attended a lecture (Impromptu Magic) by Shawn Evans (Mimesis Magic) in which he did an endless progression (& more) of this type effect but with normal props.

If I remember correctly, all his sleights consisted of false puts,false takes and thumb palms, while using a cigarette lighter to "soften the metals" as justification to go into and out of the pocket. Also, he stated that the hardest part of the routine was pocket management. He solved the problem of right or left pocket usage (retreiving and/or dumping) and switching hand sleights (right to left or left to right congruency) by using an identical lighter (non-gimmicked) in both pockets.

I don't know if any of this helps, but goodluck with your vision and stay on course.

Firstly as far as published routines go I know that Dr. Sawa has several routines that involve dollars 'breaking' into lesser denominations or variations on that theme - Have a look at the 'New coin magic of Dr. Sawa' series, but beware that some of his routines are pretty taxing technically.

I don't do a routine along these lines, but a couple of suggestions:

- You could do a RoV vanish type move with a coin in finger palm (Ramsey subtlety) in the receiving hand for a nice visual shrinking effect. If you do this it's probably a good idea to only do it once.
- From a conditions point of view, to my mind this routine will live and die on whether the audience believes you have several coins; The condition being that you can't do anything that makes the existence of extra coins possible. Obviously you can't adhere fully to that but I think it's worth putting serious thought into how you can convey that condition to your audience without it actually being the case. In particular I'm thinking of your currently unmotivated trip to a pocket - I'd say you either need a very good reason to do this, or alternatively you could start by holding out both extra coins and work from there.
- From a finishing clean point of view, you could use a shimmed coin for the middle phase and ditch it via a magnetic holdout (Back pocket?). This leads nicely into my last point which is: I wouldn't change back to a half dollar at the end, I'd offer to let the spectator keep the dime. It's personal preference I guess, but I think this trick could be a very strong effect if you put some serious thought into it and giveaways always go down well.

Hopefully something here will be helpful! It should be noted that only a very credulous spectator will honestly believe that you only had one coin, but if you make it seems like there was no possibility of extra coins being used it will hugely boost the strength of the effect.

~ Pete.

Perceptions is correct, you are not making coin smaller, you are changing the coin to something else - a transformation. In order to do what you desire, you can use a barber half dollar, barber quarter, and barber dime, which all look the same. Most people won't recognize the coin values, since they are line out of use. In addition to the Sawa routine, there is a nice routine by Harvey Rosenthhal breaking a dollar into two halves and then 4 quarters. Gallo does this nicely in the New York Coin Magic Seminar dvd series, and has a routine in the latest set where he breaks a half into two quarters, and then 5 dimes. Makes more sense than the transformation, and is very clean. Going to your pocket multiple times always garners suspicion, so if you can construct your routine without a pocket it would be better.

Following what Perceptions & Michael pointed out, if you wanted to stick with the routine you described you could rebrand it as an economics lecture, i.e. by demonstrating the effects of inflation/depreciation. That way you could, with a bit of thought, stick with the shrinking effect and it would make logical sense to anyone who has a passing acquaintance with inflation. I still like the idea of giving away the dime at the end, but you might want to consider starting with a coin that is in common circulation as I'm lead to believe that half dollars are not common now...? (I'm English)

If you are interested in the depreciating value thing then I'd suggest you look up Jamy Ian Swiss' one coin routine on YouTube as it's a good example of this kind of presentation.

~ Pete.

There are miniature replica coins.
I suspect you'd be well served by some choreography that has plenty of hand to hand transfers to display the coin around after each step in the process. What you're doing is asking them to focus into a smaller and smaller space in your hands and that last transition from a tiny coin to nothing is going to be watched very carefully.
The routine using a penny and a magnifying glass might come in handy as a model to try out in reverse.
Just a few thoughts - good luck with your project,
Jon

OK so what I would do is Get the Barbar- Half, Quarter, and dime! Bring out a tuneing fork in a bag And take the fork out and say the sound is what make the coin swink! seting it on the table. Both hands reach into both Pockets looking for the coin purse! One hand brings out a coin purse with the half in it.( and the Quarter under the coin purse) The outher hand finger palms the dime. and comes out! take the half out of the purse and set it by the bag. ( as you finger palm the Quarter) Pick up the fork tap it and touch it to the half, then set it down. then pretend to pick up the half. ( But kick it under the bag!) as you close your hand.squeeze your hand and show the Quarter saying the coin is starting to vanish! Thumb palm the Quarter as you " Place" it in your outher hand. make a magic pass over the outher hand diching the Quarter in a breast pocket! Look in the outher hand ( keep it closed just open a small hole so only you can see! )"And say o-- sorry I forgot to use the turning fork!" Pick it up and repete the touch to the hand! and set it down. then open the hand and show the dime. Now show the dime to the people on the outher side of the room. dumping it in to the outher hand. Then do a finger plam pass to petend to place it back into that hand. pick up the turning fork and agen touch it to the hand and show the coin is now to small to see. and set the too small to see coin on the table.Now set down the fork, and pick up the coin purse Open it and pick up the super small coin and place it in the coin purse. "Saying I better put this back in the coin purse I would not want to lose it! " And then pick it up with the hand that has the dime finger palmed in it. And place the dime in the coin purse as you pretend to put the super small coin in the coin purse!
So now it you want the half to come back! pick up the bag as you start to put the turning fork away. (stealing the half from under the bag) and then say "you know sometimes people ask me if I can get it to grow back? Well To do that you just have to take it back out of the coin purse and tap it with the turning fork in reverse!" No you open the coin and pretend to take the super small coin back out of the coin purse,
close the purse and set it down on the table. then toss the half into the outher hand makeing sure it's not seen yet! the outher hand now picks up the turning fork taps the hand then that hand opens and shows the coin has come back to full size! Ok that's it! I am not good at witeing this stuff up! Hope everyone can understand I am saying! Ok so thanks gang!

Joe Porper makes and sells a coin ring that pretty easily changes a quarter to a dime to a penny. You can start with a dollar coin too. It's called "coin ring" on http://www.porperoriginals.com

David, you are De Man!!

Thanks Michael, glad you liked it!:)

David,
Brilliant use of a tuning fork as a visual aid and more so, as for wand applications. The use of a traditional wand doesn't fit my presentational image but a tuning fork suits my style. You just solved some of my coin mechanics -- thanks again!

Your wecome Glad I could Help!

David, that is a great handling. You obviously have a good sense for presentation!

And thanks for the feedback. You guys are right that presenting different coin denominations just isn't going to give the sense of a shrinking coin. I thought it would just need a little bit of imagination on the part of the spectator, but when it comes down to it, imagination does not an illusion make.

Given that 95% of my tricks are done on the spot without any special coins or props, I think I'll have to side with using normal coins, but changing the patter to have more of an economics theme (a little dry topic, but I could turn it into a joke about the state of the economy)

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll be studying the routines you guys have suggested.

I haven't tried it, but personally I think you could get away with different denominations if you're not too close to the audience and go pretty fast. It wouldn't be a perfect illusion but it might be good enough to look cool.

I was thinking about this very effect just a few weeks ago, when I noticed (again) a very interesting fact:

The reverse of the Eisenhower dollar (which is huge) is the same design as the Susan B. Anthony dollar (which is about quarter size). There's a polygon border on the Susie B, but the rest looks just scaled down. (It's the Apollo 11 logo, depicting an eagle landing on the moon. Which I feel is a decidedly modern and surreal thing to put on a coin, suggesting lots of patter possibilities. "The Eagle has landed", etc.)

Now look at the obverse (heads) of the Eisenhower and of the dime. Not identical, but pretty similar, wouldn't you say? You could shrink from Susie to dime in the act of turning it over, maybe. The two coins would pass, more or less, as the two sides of a rapidly shrinking Eisenhower dollar.

Personally, I happen to have a set of tiny tiny replica coins. I don't have it in front of me but I believe it includes an Eisenhower dollar about a quarter inch wide.

If you don't have one, note that a quarter inch circle is what you get from an ordinary hole punch. You could print a little coin replica and punch it out. (You could probably make 1000 of these from one piece of paper. At least. Or maye you should punch it from aluminum foil. That might look better.) This would hopefully pass as a coin (briefly), and you could even proceed to roll it into a tiny crumb almost too small to conceal between your fingers. Simpler to just drop it. Like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxS7BQeekwM

Here's one patter option: "Seen one of these lately? The Eisenhower dollar was too big to be very practical. So they made it smaller. But nobody liked the new size either. Maybe they should shrink it again...of course in the future coins may disappear completely."

Oh, and I second the suggestions to consider ideas from Silver Extraction, and from various effects in Bobo. For example: Quick Change, Change for a Half, and Much from Little.