Tag Archives: Sleight of hand

How To Make A Card Disappear Instantly

Do you want to learn how to make a card disappear into thin air? This quite advanced trick will wow all your friends. Hope you enjoy it, I certainly did and I really liked this guy’s delivery!

Incidentally it is worthwhile if you want to take your magic seriously to invest in some decent sets of magic cards, if you don’t already have some. The ad at the top of the page is for Ellusionist and they have some great decks available. Well worth checking out the site.


Two simple Coin Tricks

Polish Złoty and Euro Coins
Image by schoschie via Flickr

Coin tricks have been the staple of magicians for years. Here are two very simple ones that anyone even you can do at home… Even you! However make sure you practice in front of a mirror and then in front of friends before you try it out on strangers!

For your first trick, you will need a coin, a handkerchief, and a friend in the audience. Here’s the presentation: you hold a coin out in your hand, palm up, so that everyone can see the coin. After placing the handkerchief over the coin and your hand, you invite several audience members to come up and feel that the coin is still in your hand. Ask them to feel under the handkerchief if they feel that is necessary, and then announce that the coin will vanish. Wave your hands over the handkerchief, say some magic mumbo jumbo, and the coin is vanished. The audience is amazed and questions how it is done.

Well, it’s actually done very simply, and with a little bit of cheating. After you drape the handkerchief over your hand, you ask people to come up and feel for the coin. Your friend in the audience is the last person to feel for the coin. When your friend ‘feels’ the coin, he or she takes it. It would help to have someone do this that is familiar with palm concealment techniques, or the whole trick could be blown. In this case, the sleight of hand is done by the other person, not you, so all you have to do is sell the trick to the audience, and it will baffle them to no end.

You next trick will be a bit more difficult, but again, with a little practice, you can do it. You are going to make a coin disappear, but in a different way. The first thing the audience sees is the coin you are working with – make it a big coin if possible so they can see it, and you can hide it better in your hand. You appear to put the coin in the palm of the other hand, and moments later, it’s gone, mysteriously reappearing in the other hand.

The real trick to this is a palm concealment. When you move the coin from your right hand to your left hand (or the other way around, whichever way you like to do the trick), close your left hand around the coin as if you were taking it with that hand. At the same time, you pull the coin back into the palm of your right hand, and trap it in the wrinkles of your palm. This is called palming the coin. You can now reveal to the audience that the coin in your left hand has vanished.

These two magic tricks with coins are very good examples of simple tricks that kids and adults alike love. They are classics that with a little bit of practice and hard work, you can master without any previous experience at magic. Try them and you’ll see that impressing people with magic tricks isn’t as hard as you think.

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How to do Card Tricks

You were the chosen one!
Image by Kyknoord via Flickr

Nearly everyone has seen a magician perform a card trick – the tricks are quite popular and often leave the audience amazed and confused. However, while some tricks are dependant on skill alone, most magic card tricks are revealed to be dependant on trick decks. Magicians practice with these trick decks until they are quite skilled, leaving the audience wondering how they perform their amazing feats. There are four main types of trick decks used by magicians, and each type is designed for a specific type of magic trick. If you’ve been wanting to add card tricks to your magical hat, read on.

Magic Card Tricks Revealed – Deck #1

The first type of trick deck used by magicians is known as the stripper deck.  This deck of cards is designed so that the magician can cut to the card he or she has selected or shuffle a specific card to the top of the deck without the audience being aware that the magician is manipulating the deck.  Stripper decks work even if an audience member has shuffled cards, so the magician often uses this technique as an additional level of proof by allowing an audience member to shuffle the cards at least once during the trick.

Magic Card Tricks Revealed – Deck #2

Another kind of deck that magicians frequently use is known as a Svengali deck. This deck works almost completely on its own, making it an excellent choice for young magicians. The deck looks like a normal deck of cards, but the magician can manipulate it to make a chosen card appear anywhere in the deck. Very little slight of hand is required, and this type of deck is extremely easy to use.

Magic Card Tricks Revealed – Deck #3

Another card deck that is popular with magicians is known as a marked deck. This type of deck can be purchased, but can also be made at home. Subtle markings are added to the back side of the card, worked into the decorative picture or design. These markings allow the magician to know the suite and number of the cards without the audience being aware. When shopping for a deck of marked cards, be sure that the markings are extremely subtle and blend in well with the design of the card. After all, you don’t want your audience to figure out the secret to your magical success.

These are just a small sampling of the types of magic decks available – a deck can be purchased for nearly any trick you’d like to preform. Remember, however, that learning to use a trick deck of cards takes some time. Be sure to put in several hours of practice with close friends and family before attempting your card tricks in front of a larger audience.

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