scott priest wrote:I have run into the "Where did it go?" problem with this
For any small use it may be to anyone, this is the spiel I use when doing this vanish:
I always use £2, or 2 Euro, coins (because they conspicuously comprise two different metals). I begin, in a quite casual, oh-have-you-heard? fashion, by saying that, 'They're talking about withdrawing these coins, aren't they?' I begin absently tossing the coin - looking to see whether it's landing on heads or tails (you'll know why this action is useful if you know the method) - while I say that the reason they're considering withdrawing them is because the use of two metals in the coin has thrown them off balance; most people don't know it, but with these coins it's not 50-50 whether they land heads or tails - they're biased one way. Again, absently, I give up tossing the coin, adding that, 'Though, I can't remember which side has the advantage now.' Then, as an afterthought, 'Ah, but what's even more interesting - and a bigger reason why they're withdrawing them from circulation - is that the two metals actually react with each other.' I'm holding the coin up, rubbing it between my hands now. 'If you just massage them together a bit... and warm them with friction... the coin... completely dissolves.'
While (I was surprised to discover with some young nephews who went off to find change and becan rubbing it) kids actually buy this, it's its influence on adults that's my concern. (1) The time delay, focus on the massaging, etc., that's a perfectly natural part of the presentation foxes them badly: they absolutely feel that you've made a coin dissappear, in front of their faces, completely openly, hands outstretched, wearing a T-shirt. But also (2) the patter itself somehow inclines them to accept that the coin has vanished, rather than gone somewhere. They don't 'believe' it, of course, but it's like they accept it as one would when watching a play or a film or anything else that's not real but that has a narrative. They never asks - as almost always happen when I vanish a coin otherwise - 'Make it reappear.' Who'd ask that? It can't reappear - it's dissolved.