THE DISAPPEARING PENNY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 57, 7 March 1936, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE DISAPPEARING PENNY.

LEARN ITS MYSTERIOUS WAYS.

It is quite an ordinary penny— with one minor difference. Through it a tiny hole, not larger than the thickness of a pin, has_ been bored close to the edge* Having obtained a penny so treated the young conjurer must next produce a long hair, or a prece of fine pink or fleshcoloured silk, which will answer the same purpose. A few inches of the hair or silk, as the case may be, are to be passed through the hole in the coin and the ends tied together, so as to form a loop. This loop must be of such a size that, when it is passed over the forefinger as far as it will go the coin shall hang down over the lowest joint of the middle finger. The coin being thus made ready for use, the young -wizard must practice making it disappear and reappear; or, in other words, transferring it to the back of the hand, where it will naturally be invisible, and back to the front again. The disappearance may be effected in either of two ways. The first is by means of a quick backward turn of the wrist, the coin swinging oyer to the rear by its own weight. The second is to tip it back with the tip of the thumb. Botk methods should be well practised, and it will bo found a good plan to practice them before a looking glass, as we can then judge of the exact effect produced. The tilting movement should, in either case, be covered by a slight sweep of the arm backwards, to cover the disappearance of the coin, and forwards for its reappearance. But a clever conjurer is not content with merely causing the disappearance of anything. To make the trick complete, he makes the vanished object reappear somewhere else. As a simple example of this we will suppose that, having the prepared coin suspended by its loop concealed ill the right hand, the performer borrows a penny, which he takes in the left hand, letting it lie on the joints of the second and third fingers. Makir.g a half-tarn of the body from left to "Tight, he apparently places it in the right hand, in reality retaining it in the left by slightly bending the two fingers above-named and showing in the right hand the trick coin, as if that were the one just lent to him. The other hand is drawn away, palm downwards, as if empty. Showing the trick coin as above, lying flat on the hand, the performer asks someone to spread a handkerchief over it. "Go," he says, and lifts the handkerchief delicately by the #entre. But the coin has disappeared. having been tipped over by the thumb to the back. Again he has tlip palm covered and brings the coin, by tilting ijie hand as he removes the handkerchief, mysteriously back again. At this point there will probably be a cry of "Up his sleeve." To disprove this, he pulls up the sleeve and with the arm bare vanishes the coin once more; but at the moment of saying "Go" thrusts forward the closed fist of the left hand and opens it with a jerk, showing the borrowed coin therein.

He may now pick up the toprowed coin from the left hand, again showing instead of the right tb* trick coin, which he has meanwhile swung once more to the front. He then 'says, "I shall now order the penny to pass into the match box" —where he or shei as concealed & similar coin beforehand. The right hand is again shown empty, and while the astonished company turn to see -whether the coin has really passed to the place indicated, the real borrowed penny is quietly dropped into one of the pockets of the conjurer.