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Hello all!

I was trying to think of something unusual to do magic with, and I started thinking that it would be fun to do something with the pieces from a Monopoly set, the doggy and the racing car and so on.

I doubt this is a new idea as there is nothing under the sun. Anyone know of any existing effects?

If anyone on here owns a Monopoly set bought in recent years, would they mind running up to their bedroom to check what the pieces are made of? There might be a lot of fun to be had if they're made from steel.

If not, I'll head down to Hamleys with a Big Bertha or M5 and just walk past the box.

I say a recent set because the construction may change from time to time.

I do Slow-Burn with the money which is nice and colourful. Coin in hand with the pieces?

I don't use the pieces as an effect themselves but I use the Iron piece as a gag.


I turn a coin into a 50 euro that's crunched into a ball and then open it.Then introduce the mini iron as a gag.Gets good laughs

My set is about 2 years old and are metal. Checked with my vortex. Hope that helps. Im from the states don't know if that will make a differance.

Yes, might be different edition in the States. Though the real question is what kind of metal?

Thanks for all input on this! I'm sure there must be something fun I can do with the pieces.

My Monopoly pieces are diecast so probabaly made from a zinc alloy, certainly not steel, so unlikely to be attracted by Big Bertha.

the houses could be used for two in the hand one ion the pocket or for a cups and balls routine with hotel finishers.
stick two comunity chest tougether for a double back
do a coins through table and finish with the dog, I told you this trick was barking.

I published a branching anagram table for both the UK and US versions of the game - the spectator would think of any property (or pick a property card) and you would read their mind.

Ian

Thanks for that info, Mandrake. Makes sense. I guess I could stuff a ***** up the dog's flank... Or some of that ******** putty?

IanKendall wrote:I published a branching anagram table for both the UK and US versions of the game - the spectator would think of any property (or pick a property card) and you would read their mind.

Ian

Sounds interesting. Is it still available?

It was part of my Virtual Sessions, but in the interests of sharing, here it is:

Hello all,

While rummaging I found some old notes and program code from 94 with a version of this effect. In the spirit of sharing I thought I'd post it here.

Effect: The spectator selects a property from a Monopoly board. The performer deduces the name of the property.

Background: Of course this is based on the progressive anagram principle. In the early nineties I wrote a small program to create these tables and churned out quite a few, but the original of the Monopoly code was based on the British property names, and missed three of the properties (I think I can remember why, but I'll save that until the end). In the spirit of completeness yesterday I loaded a DOS version of Quickbasic and retyped out the code. The next step was to get a list of the US property names, and if you've never tried to get a list of the US property names from Scotland via the Web you might be unfamiliar with the concept of 'wading through treacle'.

Method: The methods vary slightly as to which side of the pond you are, so I'll go over the selection process and then explain the two approaches.
First, explain the idea of divination, precognition, mind reading, pre camera work and impression pads (or whatever). The spectator must now choose a property card. This can be by picking from a talon of actual Monopoly cards, looking at a board and thinking of one (over the phone or on the radio for example) or just selecting from a list. Here (already) things are a bit different, so I'll detail the US version first and the UK next.

US: Of the 22 properties in the game (the rail stations and utilities are not included) an alarming number of them end in 'avenue'. For this reason, explain that we are not interested in Avenue, but only the main name (ie we will be spelling Illinois, and not Illinois Avenue. However, things like Boardwalk and Park Place do use the full name. I'm sure you can sell this ) I'm assuming, also, that you know how to use an anagram table. Due to formatting size, it's going to be hard to lay out the table, so I'll give you the six columns one at a time and you can write them out in Landscape if you want. The columns have at their heads the letters: E N R T L and blank. Column one looks like this:

E
A - Illinois
I - Boardwalk
N - Baltic / Pacific (see note 1)
L - Virginia / Indiana (note 2)
R - Atlantic
North Carolina

Column two:

N
S - Park Place
P - States
J - St Charles Place
St James Place

Column three:

R
NN - Kentucky (note 3)
T - Pennslyvania
C - Tennessee
Connecticut

Column four:

T
New York
Marvins Gardens (note 4)

Column five:

L
V - Mediterranean
M - Ventnor
Vermont

Column six:
Oriental

Note 1: There are two doubles in this table (I do have another with only one double in a column, but three columns are affected...). For Baltic / Pacific try something like 'I'm getting an upright bar with a curve to the right...I can't tell if it's one or two curves, perhaps and B or a P...do you have a B or a P?' maybe with 'There are definitely curves, it ends with a C, yes?' (At least that gives you a hit to cover the fish).

Note 2: Hmm. Perhaps 'I'm seeing large upward strokes, as if the word starts with a V or an I?' with 'I'm seeing multiple I's, but it definitely ends in a vowel, an A, yes?'

Note 3: Here we're looking for the double N. 'OK, we've got an N but no R. It's getting blurry here, almost as if I'm seeing double...is that a double N?'

Note 4: To be honest, if you can't get a hit between New York and Marvins Gardens best go back to the sponge balls If you need a help, there is no G in New York and no Y in Marvins Gardens.

Ok, now for the UK version:

There are six columns again, and this time the headings are: R E S N A blank. In the UK version we do not have the Avenue problem, so we are using the full name as spelled on the card.

Column one:

R
I - Pall Mall
E - Piccadilly
G - Whitehall
The Angel Islington

Column two:

E
Strand
Mayfair (See note 4 above)

Column three:

S
N - Whitechapel
O - Park Lane
V - Old Kent Road
B - Pentonville Road
Northumberland Avenue

Column four:

N
L - Bow Street / Oxford Street
A - Fleet Street
G - Leicester Square
M - Trafalger Square
Marleborough Street

Column five:

A
O - Vine street / Regent Street
V - Bond Street
Coventry Street

Column six:

Euston Road


And those are the tables. Here are some random thoughts:

1. There are two possible reasons for the original table only using nineteen cards; at the time I was throwing a banded talon of property cards out into the audience and getting someone to take one out. I doubt anyone would bother to count the cards and notice which were missing, and if they did, we are still reading their mind. If you want to try this approach but don't like the fishing you could always remove Pacific and Indiana from the US version and Bow and Vine from the UK. Personally I don't think the fishing is that bad, at least I've given a reason for the question, and followed up with a hit for camoflage which brings us onto point

2. This could be a great radio trick. On a phone in, get someone to go to their kid's room and get out the board. Ask them to think back to their childhood and the times they spent playing with their family and remember their favourite property. Ask them to build a hotel (neatly removing the utilities and train stations) and to look at the name on the board. Tell them the name. A point to remember; if someone has phoned into a radio station to have their mind read, they want you to succeed (we all should know that by now). By all means ask them to concentrate on the name and send it down the phone line, but that might be overkill (having said that I remember watching John Lenahan on Live TV perform the Key, and the spectator changed words three or four times in the middle...)

3. If you want to find the names of the property cards you have two options: for the UK cards you can go to mymonopoly.com where you can get custom boards made. There is a nice list of the place names. For the US version a wee bit more digging is needed. Go to one of the online game sites (I think I was on Myplaytime or something) and watch a game in progress. Then click on each of the properties and write down the name as it appears on the card. Of phone a friend in the States (of which I have none, natch).

Anyway, there you go. These tables are (c) 1994 2003 Ian Kendall, but anyone who uses them is a friend of mine

Take care, Ian

And this is the follow up post from the same thread:

I'm really sorry for not getting to this earlier - I meant to put something down explaining the process, but I've not had the time...as usual.

Right, the progressive anagram prinicple is what we are dealing with here. The short answer is that you can have a list of words that all have common letters, but these letters 'fall away' and through a process of asking questions and, er, fishing we can determine what word is being thought of (and yes, I know that sentence is grammatically incorrect, but I've not slept properly for a couple of months now and I'm feeling a wee but punchy...)

Sooo, how do we do this. Well, first we have to write out the table. The columns are listed in order, but layout means you have some work to do. Get a sheet of paper and put it in landscape mode. Then write the words in the columns starting on the left and working across. Use the table for your county, natch. Assuming we're working with the US version we now have six columns with decreasing numbers of words. There are letters at the top of each column, and letters going down the sides.

All with me? Good. Now, get your victim to think of a Monopoly property. This can be done pretty much anyway, I used to throw out a talon of cards, but see the notes at the end for ideas.

Let's imagine that we have chosen Tennessee. Here's how it works:

1. We see the top letter of column one is E, so we say that we can see an E in the name. This is confirmed.
2. We go to the next column, and call an N. Another hit.
3. We call an R. This gets a NO (the PA system will almost always get at least one, possibly two negatives).
4. Right, now we are going DOWN the column for which we got the negative. So the next letter is N. In this table, there's a good hit after the negative of the R - You can ask if there is one N or a double. If they say no to the double you know the word is Kentucky. In this case we would get a positive for the double, so we move down.
5.We get another hit for T. Move down.
6. We get a negative for C. Since this is our second NO, we know that the word is Tennessee. From here you can make up a good hit to cover the missed C and reveal your word.

That's the general idea; move along the top until you get to the first NO, and then down until you get to the second.

I've got a bunch of these, and I'm not sure what to do with them. They may end up in a booklet sometime down the road; David wants this one for Genii, so Yay! for that

Hugely generous to share all this. Reminds me of a lot of the stuff in the book NAKED MENTALISM by talkmagic hero Jon Thompson.

I think I'll have a go at this. If it doesn't work, I'll do a vanish with the old boot!

Do specs not guess how it's done, that you're just logically working it out with a bit of fishing and logic? (I guess not else you wouldn't use it!)

By the way, the hotels work as shells for the pea and shell game. They also work well for a bare hand matrix.

Hi Darren. I saw a clip a few days ago but cant seem to find it now . Anyway, Tony Hyams has a nice set of specially printed Monopoly money called Funny Money, which would go well with a Monopoly themed set.

Tony is a member on here.

jim

IanKendall wrote:It was part of my Virtual Sessions, but in the interests of sharing, here it is:
...
Take care, Ian

Ian, typically, how much fishing do you have to do? Do you generally get it within one or two questions?