It's hard to look on effect with innocent eyes, but...

A coin is shown and then it vanishes.

Does it make any difference to the spectator whether it's a retention vanish, put, take, French Drop, in the well vanish, etc., etc.? To us it's all different. To them...?

For a vanish to be effective the most important part is for the spectator to actually believe the coin/object is in the hand to begin with, so the first part to consider is the reason for putting the coin in the hand to be vanished ie if your holding a coin in your left hand but you put the coin in your right hand to vanish the coin then the action should be justified if possible.

Then you should choose the best tool for the job ie do you need to produce it, if so where from, do you need to load it etc.

Finally use a vanish that looks natural in your hands and that you can do well, I've often seen magicians execute a poor classic P**m when a thumb p**m or finger p**m would have worked just as well.

I'm not sure that the put or take part of a vanish is always the most important part.
Warren makes the point above that the technique you choose should convince the spectators that the object is really where you say it is, obviously this is important but I believe even more important is what happens after the object actually vanishes.
You probably have two, maybe three seconds until after the initial shock or surprise, the spectator begins to backtrack, it is this moment where what happens next is critical to the success of the vanish.

Good question, landmark (and some good early responses here too)...It's a question that early on I also began asking myself as to all the supposed "right & wrong" ways that are often debated as to how you do this & that. I guess they have some merit to them as standards and processes. Perhaps deeper thinkers think a bit more (or too) deeply about what kind of nail is hidden beneath the paint and plaster, while most others just see the nice paint job and fine finishings, or something like that.

But from my own experiences, I find that mostly it doesn't make much of a difference (to the specs). So, as you put here, when you show a coin and simply vanish it, I don't think in the larger scheme of things that people care at all how it was done, as they are always more immediately wrapped-up in that it was done amazingly right in front of them. They just deal with with it as they see it. So, while in its own way, everything has some importance, but some things are more important than others, and to specs the result matters most, as that is what will make them immediately feel and think one way or the other.

Now, you might use a certain vanish in particular circumstances because it "fits" better, like using a complete vanish where you can show your hands most fairly empty. Other vanishes allow you to give a good perception of a vanish of a coin, as long as you play out the relative parts of it being gone, but to the spec, it's still just gone and hopefully, amazingly so.

The many different ways to vanish a coin are just there for variety mostly, so that you don't do it the same way over & over again, or have to do something awkwardly based upon what you are doing. But as there are different kinds of screws, I guess vanishes can have a more appropriate usage as to what you're doing. And again, as to the original post, I'd say you're mostly right, as to us there's differences, but to specs, the coin is simply gone. What you do all behind that is just to help secure that in his mind.

Having a reason to place it in another hand will definitely make a difference. If you just say you are going to make the coin disappear and you put it in the other and make it vanish, it could look suspect. Think of someone doing a french drop for the first time.

If you hold a coin and say you will make it disappear and then "accidently" drop it in the other hand, then say, "Okay, Now it will vanish," it will seem like a one hand vanish.

Or if you place a coin in a hand and have someone snap their fingers over the hand, it could look like they did.

Something like that

Huh? What frame of reference are you describing? What specifically do you want the audience to imagine you did?

If it's "I put the coin in the other hand" - you've probably already sunk that ship as far as magic goes.

Condition, Cause, Consequence(s)

Agreeing with Jonathan (I think) Revealing that an object has vanished immediately after a transfer (synchronous) is rarely "good magic,"

Having something else occur in between both enhances mystery and makes "reconstruction" more difficult (asynchronous).
I am also in favor of displaying the passing hand empty BEFORE the reveal in either case. (What I call Preemptive Doubt)

As to the OP question, it rarely matters what techniques is employed. The key is what the observer remembers having occurred.
Thus, the selection of method should be guided by routine flow and audience expectations more than the performer's love for a specific technique.

The ideal may be, "This guy was doing some amazing things with a coin and it suddenly vanished. Gone!
I made some guesses as to when and where it would appear, but was wrong. I think he just made it invisible."

"Cause" should not enter their thinking.

Consider from a director's view only:

What is the condition of the prop(s) before you attempt to demonstrate magic?

What is the means by which you attempt to make magic happen? (ritual, gesture, words... an alarm on your smartphone?)

What is the outcome of your attempt? (is the coin tiny, invisible, gone where you sent it, missing in action, replaced by a few grains of salt you hope nobody notices...)
*

One more "C", context. What are they expecting from you? Are you a masked bandit/pickpocket? Are you selling packets of ez-coin-carry which makes coins tiny and almost weightless ?

Interesting suggestion there.

All agreed. My intention in my question was meant to question the variety of plots in coin magic. Let me try again, with a different example because I think I framed it poorly before:

To us, Coins Across, VCA, Coins Through Table, Coins To Cup, Cylinder and Pence are distinct plots. How attuned are non-magician audiences to the difference? I'm hypothesizing that they are the same plot to the majority of audiences: The story of the coins moving around by invisible means.

Perhaps it is the use of "story" that is causing confusion. In my new approach to describing magic effects/routines:

Back script/story - character continuity.
Preparation script/story - materials, moves, sleights and stratagems to be masted BEFORE studying the other scripts.
Action script/story - what the spectator sees or perceives.
Verbal script -- either story line or patter, plus non-verbal cues and audience adaptation.
Secret script/story - all the stuff the spectator should not see perceive or suspect.
Told Story - what they relate to grandchildren a year later.

for me, none of these match "the story of the coins moving around by invisible means" - or, I hope they never think that.

The Told Story is the most important, and should be different for each of the effects you offered. (opinion)

I do agree that magicians look at what is happening differently prom what a spectator perceives and remembers -

that is the job, to make sure the Told Story is what you want regardless of what actually happened.

If you are correct in your assumption that today's audience sees these all to be the same, then video game mentality has won
and I should just forget about conjuring as a means of communicating in any artistic sense.

Okay, we're getting closer here. Yes, Ken--that's what I'm hypothesizing. The Told Story, to use your vocabulary, in my opinion, for those effects, especially three months from performance, will be the same story--as they tell it to their friends.

Or perhaps I should put it more usefully: What can we as magicians do to make sure that those effects are in fact read as different stories?

And in my opinion, no use bemoaning video games; the onus is on the performer to achieve what s/he wants to achieve, not the audience.

The cap/pence item usually has all the coins revealed to have gone (through the table if you're reading the original) at the same time.
The Han Ping Chien coin trick had a group of coins divided and again the action led to an all-at-once reveal.
The routine(s) evolved from Hoffmann's item in More Magic where you remove coins from a volunteer's closed hand one at a time play well. His Multiplying Money trick, the item before, also reads as a distinct effect where a borrowed english penney multiplies at the fingertips.
The "miser's dream" evolved from what's described of lhomme masque's act in Bobo's toward something impressive for a finale - whether it's the coin ladder where a coin goes back up or Teller's more recent use of a fishtank.

That said, it probably helps if they believe you've got a coin in your hand before you announce your effect.

I favor the famous Etienne Lawrenceau analogy of a loop of rope handled by both performer and audience.
It is a continuous give and take, of providing slack or a tug as required. It is a shared responsibility,
with the performer d taking the guiding role. Which takes us back to "know your audience."

What does today's audience expect and appreciate in the "awe & wonder" landscape?
If performing for visually impaired folks one is careful about the selection of effects. Likewise hearing impaired.
What about those impaired from never having seen a live performance, or believe that "fool me" is the objective?
What of those with stunted imagination or only vicarious experience with any performing art?

Attention span? Cellphone dependency? Vocabulary limitations? There are many factors to be considered in designing a routine
that will create the desired, long term memory. Sadly, your original guess may be correct, Despite any attempts by the performer,
many in the audience will remember only what they can check out on YouTube or what a friend says is important.

Perhaps if only one member of the audience gets the story right it will be enough. We will never know, and that is OK too.

Funsway, Jon, I don't think I am an unsophisticated audience, and I don't play video games, but back when I was still a magic virgin, and knew little of the mechanics of coin magic, I experienced far fewer differences among the usual coin effects popular than I do today. I think it's important to try to remember that state when possible.

One at a time, or all at once? That's not what the focus is to the spec--the darned things went from one place to another! Who cares about how many at a time? Just the magician--for method reasons.

Miser's dream, Multiplying Coins, free and unlimited coinage of Silver, is a different plot from the "coins from here to there" plot. That is the "money from nowhere plot." I believe the specs experience that as a different plot from the previous one I mentioned.

I guess I missed that you might mean effects in the same show. Yes, doing several coin effects would suggest have a different theme for each one, intermixed with objects other than coins. If a spectator sees you do 3Fly one month and Coins thru table six months later I doubt they will remember them as being the same. SO, the problem may be doing too many coin effects, or ring on string, or rope effects. I was mentored that three of any type is max.

In one routine I do an unexpected vanish, a production of a different coin, a C/S transpo in the hands of two spectators and a Gadabout C/S type effect ending with a 'vanish to empty' in the hand of another spectator. I don't see how any observer would think these are the same.

I ponder on what audience will see these similar type effects in which your scenario is likely. Do performers really do coins across, coins to glass, 3Fly and Matrix all in the same show?

In addition to much good advice above...consider this:

As Derren Brown explains in Absolute Magic, the key is that YOU believe in what you are doing. You really place the coin in the hand, you still feel it, you know how and why it vanishes (the magic, not the method), you experience the vanishing as though it were real. The ultimate misdirection is if you believe what you are asking your audience to believe.

Do you remember the opening quote from Peter Brook in Absolute Magic? It was pretty interesting. I don't have that book anymore, but as I recall it was something like, "What remains after a performance? An image, not even a feeling."

The Peter Brook quote is at the beginning of Pure Effect. What he implies is that down the road, the image which burns into our memory serves as a way to reconstruct various thoughts, feelings and memories of the experience. It actually reminds me a lot of the psychology in the (non-magic) book Stumbling On Happiness, which is centered on how we recall feelings and fill in Story gaps of our past based upon key images and memories.

Ah, thanks, another book that slipped away.
I really like that Derren's focus was there. I think it was what made his magic seem so powerful.