I am new to coin magic, but have noticed that many effects can be done by a large variety of techniques. Which got me wondering what effects are possible. When I say effect I mean what the audience sees rather than a trick by name, for there are many different tricks that are essentially the same from layman's viewpoint. So I would like to know what ungimicked effects exist. Please comment full names rather than just acronyms so the effects are easier to find for those who don't know them.

off the top of my head

Coin Vanish
Coin Production
Coin Transformation
Coin Teleportation
Coin Multiplication
Coin Matrix
Coins Across
3-Fly

I'm sure there are other effects so please pitch in, especially because I have only mentioned very broad effects and more specific effects are probably out there using theses broad categories as their base. Also if any of the ones listed have more official names or common acronyms please share that as well so other topics can be read easier.

It would be tough to name them all...I'm pretty sure most gimmicked tricks can be done ungimmicked.
3 fly
Coins across
Matrix
Are the "go to" but there are soany variations the list could be endless

NPortMagic you literally any repeated the three more specific effects I mentioned. Though as far as variation goes you make a good point that naming every variation would be close to impossible. But there is enough variation differences in presentation that the same general effect could be classified in more specific categories. Just as the three we both mentioned are all teleportation effects, their presentation style makes them unique effects for a layman.

I agree with NPortMagic that it's virtually impossible to list them all.
It also depende on how specific you want to get.
I consider a Vanish + Production to be different than a Teleportation, but you might not.
On the other hand, is a 3Fly really different from repeated Teleportations with several coins?

But is a Coins Across routine different than a Coins to Glass? What about as compared to a Coins to Pocket, or Coins through Table?

There are a lot of examples like this. Does a one-coin flurry always count as the same effect? What if it has more than one part? What if it also contains color transformations? Is it different if it (secretly) uses two coins?
What if they look the same but the story is different?

Unless you start to think about your question in this way, I think it's not possible to get close to an answer. There are either very few (Vanish, Production, Teleportation, Transformation), or too many to enumerate.

There was also an interesting conversation about spongeballs that was quite similar. You might find it an interesting read:
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......orum=115

Thanks tonsofquestions for that link it is very interesting for me. As far as my personal answer to some of the different routines you mentioned. To me you mentioned two new effects that I didn't think of in my original post.
Those being:

Coin to an impossible location
Coin penetration through an object

I am trying to think of this question from the view of a layman spectator. With respect to one coin routine using one coin or secretly using two or even multiple techniques, is simply doing the same effect, but just in a way that the layman can't figure out how it is done. Where as a coin dispersing and showing up in an unexpected place such as a pocket of glass looks very different from a coin going through a table from the point of view of a layman, even though for the magician it may use the exact same technique. Practically I am also looking at this question in terms for learning techniques, slights. If a technique can accomplish more effects than another then that is the one I would prefer to learn. But I purposely am not addressing techniques in this question because I want envision what I could do before I learn how to do them.

I think a good refernce would be In The Beginning There Were Coins by Jay Nobalezada...give it a look....there are so many other great resources though...again it depends on what you are trying to do or what variation....

The mastery of six key sleights will allow you to perform dozens of effects that appear different to a lay spectator.
Variation of those sleights will open the door to hundreds of effects.

For example, a "coins across" can be varied for a repeat situation by changing the fake transfer method employed or by adding a different false transfer.

Bobo or the DVD version will give you most of what you need. Learning audience engagement will provide the rest.
There are many paths to doing a couple of magic tricks. Learning to be a magician is a lifetime journey.

A hint. Rather than looking for ways to make an observer believe a coin is somewhere other than where it actually is,
focus on understanding where the observer "knows" the coin to be and find a way to have it be somewhere else.
Some times a sleight is best, sometimes a gaffed coin, sometimes a device or container and often just psychology.
If the spectator expects magic to occur, it will. Method is secondary to creating the conditions under which magic can occur.

I think I agree with you that a penetration is different.
But how is "coin to impossible location" different than "coin teleportation", from the spectator's point of view?
How is "coin multiplication" different from just producing a second (or third) coin? Otherwise, perhaps you need to add "consolidation" to your list (two coins become one).

Have you thought about coin shrinking/growing (with mini/jumbo coins?)

But I still think you're trying to draw a strange line. If you're talking about the spectator's perspective, presentation is key. Making a coin disappear could be conveyed as "shrinking" the coin into nothingness, turning it "invisible" (look, it's still here, you can just see through it), or "teleporting" it somewhere, and then bringing it back. All three have very different feelings to the spectator, but are basically the same from the magician's perspective.

I agree that you should prioritize some basic sleights first - past the basics, many are just variations on a theme (the many ways to do a retention pass, for example), and with those you can come up with most routines you'd want to do.

I have always been more of a purist...i prefer good ole sleight of hand to perform my coin magic. Over the years I have come up with a lot of interesting ways to do effects that don't use gaffed coins. I teach a lot of them in the Penguin Live lecture series. Here is a partial list off the top of my head:
From the first Penguin Live lecture :
The Wishing Well : 4 coin production
Tallahassee Jumping Coins : coins across with only 3 coins
The Purse and Glass: three silver coins exchange places with three copper coins
Nest of Boxes: a marked coin changes places with another coin then dissapears, reappearing inside several nested boxes
Ultimate Silver Lint: My favorite spellbound routine
Twilight Zone Wild Coin purse handling: a wild coin routine where three old copper coins become gold
Triple Play: a three coin production, vanish, reproduction, using the one behind principle
Stealth Palm copper Silver transposition : the Best copper silver transposition in a Spectator's hand. Period.
Three times coin to card: a marked coin appears under your business card three times
Four coins through the table
Stealth Wild Coin: a three coin production, all change to copper coins, then change back to silver, then vanish
Two card Reverse Matrix
Quadra Coin Reverse Matrix

From the Penguin Live 2 lecture :
The wishing well: simpler version of the one taught in the first lecture
Impossible four coin trick: a coin production and coins across, under impossible conditions
Magical Money Rap: misers dream done to a comedy rap song
Imagine a Coin: a triple spellbound
The Specciolini Brothers : comedy coins across with no need for a table
Twilight Zone Wild Coin cup version: formal presentation of the one taught in the first lecture
Giant four coins through the table
The Substitution Trunk Mystery : a copper and silver coin change places ala the big stage illusion when one is closed in an okito box
Smileys Junior: a frown drawn on a coin becomes a smile and a bigger smile
There are more, but these are the ones off the top of my head. More in the NYCMS dvd series as well, too many to mention, by myself and a host of other great magicians! Hope this helps!

Left out of the Penguin Live 2 lecture the coin and hankerchief effects Copper or Silver extraction, copper penetration, and copper silver transposition in a Spectator's hand. This trio of effects come right out of Bobo, but with some added techniques to get very clean displays!

Funsway you describe well the underlying thought of my question. The fact that many effects are possible with a few slights, and many effects can be obtained using a variety of similar slights. I realize that in performance repetition of the same effect using different methods is powerful and right now I'm thinking of what effects are possible with coins. Thanks also for the recommendation of Bobo I have the book, but I have yet to spend good time studying it.

Tonsofquestions admittedly there is a bit of nuance in naming or differentiating effects. In retrospect I wish I had not included Coin Vanish, Coin Production, Coin Transformation, or Coin Teleportation in my original post due to the fact that all effects ultimately is one of these effects or a combination of them. In my mind the difference between teleportation and to an impossible location would be where it ends up. If the coin simply appears in the other hand or under a card the spectator knows that their are a variety of ways for that to happen even if they didn't see anything, but if a coin appears in a sealed bottle or a box the has been in sight and untouched the entire routine that seems like an impossible feat that has been accomplished.

I do think that consolidation and shrinking/growing coin should be added to this list. Though to my knowledge the shrinking/growing coin would need a gimmick, aka a replica of a coin in various different sizes. But you mentioning the shrinking/growing coin made me think of doing this using the various denominations of US coins saying you are going to get rid of half of the coin and then show the next coin down in value/size. This kind of thought which came to my mind based on your idea is what I desire from this topic. I desire an exchange of ideas of various effects to aid in production of new tricks and routines.

I also realize that the story of a performance changes how the spectator see the effect. And having the ability to vary ones presentation and use the same techniques I think is an important skill for a magician. As such I think it is worth mentioning those kinds of differences.

Michael Rubinstein thanks for you list of routines some of them I would consider repeats of effects, but there are also many that I don't believe I included such as two obviously different coins switching places with each other or the frown to smile. Being new to coin magic I haven't often thought of the power of using multiple types of coins other than in simple coin transformations.

p.s. sorry for the multiple posts in a row. I am still working on getting 50 posts and these three post seemed different enough that they could merit being separated rather than one long post.

I posted an almost identical topic on the card forum in relation to cards and one of the responses was this excellent link:
Http://www.conjuringarchive.com/tree.php
This link was provided by ChrisPayne

And if you look, there's a section on coins there:
http://www.conjuringarchive.com/tree.php?cat=32
There's a whole category of lists for Matrix, which you listed as one type. And it's still not exhaustive of all tricks, because more are constantly being released (or were unlisted).
But it's closer to your "list every single kind/style of performance" than "what types of effects" are there.

As far as jumbo/mini coins go, many consider them to be less of a "gaff" than other things. There are whole threads about gaffs vs gimmicks (I don't want to have that discussion here), but it's also a very cheap addition that you can use as a kicker ending, rather than something as a tool to make the routine less sleight-heavy.

And yes, we understand you're trying to get to 50 posts, but it's still considered a faux-pas to post on your thread 4 times in a row.

Thanks for bringing to my attention the distinction between gaffs and gimmicks, In my mind I was equating the two even though I saw a difference between them.

Noticing the Coin section of the link is why I did the fourth post, for while I intentionally did a faux-pas with the three in a row I hadn't checked the card version of this topic until after I posted the first three. But seeing the link as pertinent to this thread I did not see that post as a flaw, even though admittedly it still appears the same. But I shall repent for my faux-pas and stick to individual posts unless a situation like the fourth appears again.

Finally as tonsofquestions mentioned this link is still not a perfect list, nor will there ever be such a list, so any more thoughts on various types of effects are graciously welcome

Friend Hakaput:

Time for a few definitions! A "gaff" is the carny (short for carnival worker, in this case usually a carny who does magic in a side show) word for "gimmick". (Most carnys couldn't spell "gimmick"!) I "broke in" as a magician and showman, in the mid '40s when I was 15, working in a "ten in one". (Another carny word to describe a side show.)

A gimmick/gaff is an UNSEEN device that helps produce an EFFECT, when a magician performs a TRICK.

The EFFECT is what the spectator perceives, when the performer performs the TRICK.

Dariel Fitzkee's "The Trick Brain" (published in the '40s as part of a trilogy) lists 19 EFFECTS. E.G.: production, vanish, transposition, transformation, penetration, restoration, levitation, etc.

EFFECTS ARE NOT TRICKS! Tricks, like music, exist only while they are being performed. When one stops dragging the taut horsehair over the taut catgut, the music stops.

BTW, an eminently qualified magician, the late S. H. Sharpe, said (many years ago): "Those who think that magic consists of doing tricks, are strangers to magic. Tricks are only the crude residue from which the lifeblood of magic has been drained."

I plan to PM you, as soon as I can find a spare moment. "Thee and me" have something in common.

Regarding your apparently new found interest in magic, and, further, your interest in evangelization, I would suggest, "FESTINA LENTE"!

Pro invicem!

Dick

Dick thank you for the clarification of definitions. Being new to magic, or at least the community of magicians, I sure I cold use a lot of help in that area, so that I can be more precise when I communicate. I will have to look into "The Trick Brain" and see what all the effects are.

I will try to reword my question using these new definitions. What are various presentations of tricks that make the effects seem unique for the spectators? Such that even though many tricks have the same effect,vanish, transformation, transportation, ect. the spectator see it as a completely different type of trick.

And don't worry I realize that magic is about a lot more than tricks, but I'm to a skill level in card magic where I feel I can be more creative. Trying to create some of my own tricks, even if I just end up creating published tricks through my own mind rather than learning or buying them. And while I am not nearly skilled enough for that in coin magic my creative juices are still flowing.

Also I would be happy to PM and I am glad that you have pick up on my desire to evangelize in my posts on other threads.

Coin falling up is a great effect!

One of the reasons I love coin magic is that this particular branch of the art offers such a simple, clear vision of all of magic's basic or classic principles.

It's sister, card magic, is more complex, because of the numbers and suits introduced with which everyone is familiar. This muddies up the underlying principles a lot of time for me.

For the most part, there is little of this lack of clarity with coins. It is more simple, it is elegant. You are left with the basic principles that cover all of magic- and there are limitations to what you can actually accomplish when you write the goal down; but, this adds to your challenge in creating something profound and notable.

Like a walk in the woods, the path and journey are really the point sometimes, more than the destination. Too often we neglect to remember this through our lives.

The low number of "possible outcomes" is a good thing with coins, in that it demands perfection and creativity. You don't get as lost in the breadth of details, and with just a handful of masterfully learned sleights, all things become possible.

I would offer the thought that the "limitations" in coin magic- the fact that one can only vanish, transpose, teleport, multiply and a few other things are really only limited by the magician's imagination and presentation. Each of the basic foundation "effects" can be made new and seemingly wildly original again by a simple twist of adding another "prop" or a new bit of "patter".

Think about David Roth and his presentations. He hasn't changed the basic use of sleights, nor has he invented new tricks, so much, as he has created wonderfully imaginative new stories and colorful, interesting props to elevate otherwise a standard sleight's use into something that is wondrously fun and magical.

Think of his coin purse routine, his portable hole. He seemingly turns "regular" effects into whole new and fresh wizardry. His effects are never about the result, they are about the journey. This is his wondrous gift, and we all should keep in mind that the basic list of coin effect "possibilities" really extends to all magic.

So, while there are distinct limitations of "what you can do" with coins- the envelope can be pushed, and quite wonderful new miracles can be sought after and created using the same classic principles that have been around for hundreds of years.