talkmagic.co.uk

When I started taking magic seriously I bought Royal Road and Bobo. I fell naturally in to card magic but never got comfortable with coins. I have made serious attempts to get in to Bobo and get some coin magic but I have two problems.

Firstly I suffer from some Arthritis in my hands and I find the knuckle busting sleights painful to impossible.

Secondly I struggle with Bobo. Well, to be fair to Bobo it may be that I just can't do coin magic. I don't think it is the style of the book. I treat Royal Road which is of a similar era as a bible. It is well thumbed, there are turned back corners and it has the odd coffee stain. So I am not anti book.

I think that what this ramble is about revolves around two questions. First, do I need coin magic? My own view is that if I cannot do anything with coins I can't call myself a real magician. Opinions on that one please. Second is there an easier way in to coin magic than Bobo?

I know that there are a myriad of reviews on all sorts of magic on this site but I was really looking for a personal viewpoint on this subject.

I think you need to buy some shells.

David Roth is a good teacher of all the sleights used in coin magic. Dai Vernon referred to him as the best coin manipulator in the world.

I shared a view similar to yours.. I feel that I need to be able to do coin magic to be 'worthy' of the title Magician. My one and only problem in coin magic has been the classic palm. I refused to study any coin magic until this was mastered as the classic palm is referred to as the main palm and if I couldnt classic palm then coin magic could kiss my a**. Luckily for me.. walking round with coins all day has paid off, many blisters later I am fairly comfortable.. still it doesnt help my skin is a little dry but in general I am ok with it now.

My point is put the practice in.. the only sleights you really need are the classic palm, finger palm & thumb palm.. retention vanish, himber vanish, french drop, click pass, 2 utility passes, bobo switch a few false transfers then you have all you need to perform great coin magic.

None of those should be too difficult even with arthritis.. the knuckle busting moves you can leave out and still do great magic it just takes a lot more time than cards.

Maybe pick up David Roths expert coin magic made easy volume 1

I know theres a 5 dvd set out called modern coin magic. I think it's the same as bobo but might be easier to learn on screen.

I too seem to find the idea of breaking into coin magic kind of daunting. One of the first Dvd's I ever bought on the subject of magic was Sankeys revolutionary coin magic and apart from the messiah vanish and one other (the name escapes me) I've never attempted any.
What especially turned me off was the goshman pinch which after hours of trying I never came close to achieving.
I also looked into the silver dream routine which is damn fine but again the ungimmicked version is pretty damn difficult and I wonder whether I can achieve a similar or better reaction from an audience with something different and less time consuming.
It's not practice time that concerns me, but the complex nature of an effect is not as much interest to me as the reaction something gets from an audience. Also the more difficult the more can go wrong.
Saying all this though I am still attracted to coin magic as they are familiar object to which the laymen 'knows' they cannot be faked and I find an elegance to good coin work.

As a matter of interest which uk coin is easiest to learn classic palming. I presume it'd be a 50p or a £2 ?

I thought the 5 dvd set was the royal road set

If there is a modern coin magic dvd set id be set to spend more money

I started off learning the palm with a £2 coin and then gradually moved to smaller coins. I'm down to confortably palming 10ps now and working on pennies.

I think that as long as you've got the palm and french drop down well, you're well on your way.

I learnt from Bobo's and Mark Wilson's books, found them both very good but it does take a lot longer to learn to handle the coins smoothly than it does for some other forms of magic.

I'm personally a cardie myself who likes and respects coin magic and sometimes feel that I'm missing out by not practising coins. As I feel its probably the most impromptu type of magic there is.

My main worry is taking on too much. Learning even the basic sleights in cards can be daunting enough without even looking at the countless other techniques in existence.

Lady of Mystery wrote:I started off learning the palm with a £2 coin and then gradually moved to smaller coins. I'm down to confortably palming 10ps now and working on pennies.

I'm the opposite. I can palm 5ps and 1ps and even fool myself. 2ps are my "working" coins. half dollars I'm finding almost impossible.

smaller coins are easy to palm, larger coins took some work but 2p coins are the easiest to learn with.. £2 are ok but the grip isnt that great, half dollars feel more comfortable though

There is indeed a dvd set of Bobo and it's blinking excellent. Coin work is initially harder to get the hang of than cards and you can't go straight out and do a self worker but it's really rewarding after a few months. Especially as most other magicians you meet are competent with cards but rarely are they any good with coins. There are exceptions but I find it somewhat amusing that I'm now considered to be a coin worker by my mates simply because I can do coin tricks.

Also there's very little that beats a decent one coin routine that can be done on the spot, at least from a layperson's point of view.

I cannot comment on the first question. I am an amateur hobbyist btw.
I stared out with coins because I thought that they could be more impromptu, while still requiring a high level of skill (everyone and his dog knows a card trick, and everyone knows about set-up decks and gaffs in cards). The impromptu nature is somewhat undermined by the fact that UK coins are not good, and EU coins are even worse. Half-dollars are now scarce in change in the US. I read of a US magician performing for college students recently and they asked to see his half-dollars as they thought they were foreign coins.
I too started with Bobo – big mistake. When will people stop recommending Bobo for beginners, and stop calling it a Bible?
Bobo is a very good, cheap resource for routines once you are at at-least intermediate level. It is hopeless for sleights. The diagramming is poor even for the time the book was first published (early ‘50s) – they were already using enhanced photographs for other similar publications at that time. MCM is Bobo’s personal, and somewhat idiosyncratic, collection of coin routines. Curtis Kam (Magic Café) points out that at the time the MCM was published Vernon was already a living legend and was regularly lecturing to magicians, yet there is only one reference to Vernon in the MCM index.
I bought tapes of David Roth on eBay (Easy to Master series) and I really felt I was starting to improve. I would recommend these to anyone. I augmented these tapes with Ian Kendall’s Basic Coin Magic (sleights only) - http://virtualmagicshow.com/vsession/index.php. Again something I would highly recommend, not only for coins.
Ammar’s and David Stone’s DVDs are also supposed to be good, but I haven’t seen them. Dan Watkins site - http://www.coinvanish.com gives a good summary comparison between the Roth, Stone and Ammar DVDs.

I envy a good coin worker. Ive been working for ages on coin work ( well, since December ) and only now am I starting to put together a nice little rotuine..

producion of coin ( lhomme masque load )
vanish of coin
several coins to pocket and reproducing them from the air.
then coin from pen cap routine ( david stone ) ending in coin from pen cap through the air invisibly to the table.

Its nice to be able to put a routine together it feels a lot more satisfying than card work because its been so much harder. well worth learning some knuckle busting sleights though..

i started with chineese coin's and I'm leening to go back to them due to the ever constant change in us and uk coinage and the fact that shell work is not even a consideration in most peoples psychi when using coins with holes in.

my dad used to make all my coins for me from brass and acid etch dragons on them as well as shells and boxes, he's retired now and in portugal so i'll have to go to places like cards for magic for my coins now but atleast you get the bonus of going on to ring and string routines off the back of a coins across routine.

ps http://www.worldmagicshop.co.uk/expanded-chinese-shell-wcoin-blue-p-3854.html cheepest place for chineese coins and shell iv'e found so far.

I started of in magic with coins before cards, for the reason someone said that everyone and his granny knows a card trick. And I do like to be different. Personally I don't think you need coin work to call yourself a magician, I mean do magicians cover every possible dicipline?
I learnt from, and can't recommend highly enough, David Roth's 'Expert Coin Magic' on DVD or tape. Mr. Roth's teaching style is excellent, the first tape covers all the basic sleights and a couple of tricks.
You could also stick with the easier sleights and learn tricks using those. I'm sure there are quite a few effects or even routines with finger palm or thumb palm etc.