Coin Fold references

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Coin Fold references

Postby Mike Rubinstein » September 27th, 2010, 7:33 pm

Hi, I am researching different types of coin folds in the literature. Any help will be greatly appreciated, especially for the very old ones. Thanks in advance!

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Joe Pecore » September 27th, 2010, 8:25 pm

Are you talking about the method of folding a coin in piece of paper or a folding-coin like used in coin in bottle?
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Mike Rubinstein » September 27th, 2010, 8:51 pm

Folding a coin in a piecs of paper to make it vanish. There are some really great ones, and I was curious how many are out there, and what are the earliest references.

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Richard Kaufman » September 27th, 2010, 8:58 pm

The Irv Weiner and Marlo handlings are pretty good.
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Joe Pecore » September 27th, 2010, 10:37 pm

Here is what Bart Whaley has in his Encylopedic dictionary of magic for early references (I'll see what else I can dig up via Alexander):

Jargon by 1897 Stanyon;
1905 H. Benedict in Magic;
1912 Waller in Magic Mirror;
1923 Magic Wand;
1935 Gen Grant in The Trixter Monthly;
1943 Hugard in HMM;
1952 Bobo;
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Joe Pecore » September 27th, 2010, 10:55 pm

Earliest I could find was:

To Extract a Coin from a Folded Paper in "More Magic" by Professor Hoffmann (c. 1890)
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Mike Rubinstein » September 28th, 2010, 12:08 am

Thanks for the references, thats a great starting point for me! Anyone know if there are any dated earlier, perhaps from Europe?

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby David Alexander » September 28th, 2010, 1:23 am

Never saw Marlo do the Coin Fold but in Irv Weiner's hands it looked like real magic. The coin was folded in the paper and then the paper was torn to shreds at his finger tips. Just beautiful.

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Philippe Billot » September 28th, 2010, 2:49 am

See Tarbell Course in Magic, Lesson 23, 1927 or Volume 1 (1941), page 103.

The Coin Fold was first described in The Discoverie of Witchcraft with two papers glue back to back for a change or a vanish.

The "manipulative" approach date back to the end of the XIX century. There is a reference in Dr. J. Dhotel La Prestidigitation sans bagages.

Marlo's method is in Coining Magic (1956)

Irv Weiner's method was a marketed trick entitled Kleen Cut Coin Fold (1952)

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Joe Pecore » September 28th, 2010, 7:26 am

>>The Coin Fold was first described in The Discoverie of Witchcraft with two papers glue back to back for a change or a vanish.

That sounds more like "Buddha Paper", then the traditional coin fold (i.e. the coin never actually leaves the paper).
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Edwin Corrie » September 28th, 2010, 7:58 am

>> That sounds more like "Buddha Paper", then the traditional coin fold (i.e. the coin never actually leaves the paper).

Quite right, the trick in "Discoverie of Witchcraft" is the Buddha Papers, which is not the same as the Coin Fold.

For the Coin Fold, there's one version (not sure whose) in which you staple each of the four sides but don't staple all the layers on the open side. And Supreme Magic used to sell a completely different method (called Penny Paper, I think) where one part of the paper square had a secret pocket in it. It was probably designed with magicians in mind because the point was that you could clearly show your hands empty at the moment when the coin is normally stolen.

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Philippe Billot » September 28th, 2010, 8:11 am

Buddha Paper is the premisse to Coin Fold

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Joe Pecore » September 28th, 2010, 1:47 pm

Jack Potter did an index of references for "Coin Folds (in paper)".

It was first published in his Potter's Bar column in Linking Ring, September 1959, page 72.
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Edwin Corrie » September 28th, 2010, 6:44 pm

Philippe: Scot describes two methods in "The Discoverie of Witchcraft". I've never quite understoond the first one, but the second one with the two squares stuck together (Buddha Papers) is a bit different from the classic Coin Fold. The premise is certainly similar, but with the Buddha Papers the effect is usually a change from one coin to another, not a vanish. Many of the old books that plagiarised Scot included the first method but not the second one. (Eckartshausen's "Verschiedenes zum Unterricht und zur Unterhaltung" (1792) adds something to the explanation, but it's still not very clear.) Will Blyth's "Paper Magic" (1923) is the only source I've seen that describes the Buddha Papers as a coin vanish.

The classic Coin Fold as a vanish appears in C. Lang Neil's The Modern Conjurer (1903) and Hilliard's Greater Magic (1938). Al Baker describes a slightly different method in Magical Ways and Means (1941). Other variations include one used by Bob Ostin but not claimed by him in A Lifetime of Magical Inventions" (where the coin escapes by apparently passing through a small hole in the paper) and several by Marlo in Coining Magic. Martin Gardner gives a nice summary of methods and variations in his Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic. And I have an anonymous Italian book called Magia e Giochi di Prestigio (2006) which describes a completely different kind of fold (a square folded on the diagonal).

Joe: do you have access to the Potter Index? Is "More Magic" the earliest reference we have?

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Joe Pecore » September 28th, 2010, 8:09 pm

I don't see anything earlier than 1890 in Potter's Index. Here are a few undated ones and another from 1890.

* To Change a Sixpence into a Shilling in UP TO DATE CONJURING by Anonymous (1890)
* The Penetrating Coin in THE BOY'S BOOK OF CONJURING by Anonymous (no date)
* Come and Go in POPSICLE MAGIC COIN BOOK by Anonymous (no date)
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Mike Rubinstein » September 28th, 2010, 11:44 pm

Thank you for all of those references, I appreciate all of your help!

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Bob Farmer » September 29th, 2010, 11:22 am

I remember an interesting coin fold in the Linking Ring. I think it was by Charles Patton -- I don't have the LR reference, but I'm sure someone can locate it.

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Pete McCabe » September 29th, 2010, 1:38 pm

Several years ago I saw someoneI think it was Jorg Alexanderclose his Parlor show at the Castle by vanishing a half dollar using the coin fold. It was beautiful, and incredibly powerful.

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Bob Farmer » September 29th, 2010, 1:52 pm

I am remembering the coin fold I mentioned a bit more -- it used a dollar bill as the paper which makes, I guess, more "sense."

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 29th, 2010, 1:58 pm

? they drop four quarters into a folded paper and when they unfold it there's a dollar bill?
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 29th, 2010, 2:03 pm

Philippe Billot: Buddha Paper is the premisse to Coin Fold

Not sure as that seems closer to a tamed version of the gypsy switch of money for slips of paper.

Just to be sure - the coin fold is the item where you fold a coin into a sheet of paper, tap it against something so they can hear the solid sound then tear the paper to reveal the coin is gone - the effect registering when the bits of paper flutter down to the floor or table - correct?
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Philippe Billot » September 29th, 2010, 2:58 pm

In Scot's book, the trick is entitled "To transforme anie one small thing into anie other forme by folding a paper" but if you use only one coin, you can also reveal that the coin has vanished instead of changed.

The method explained is the one with a prepared paper now known as the Buddha Papers.

If a lambda spectator watch you doing the vanish of a coin with the prepared paper, then with the method named the Coin Fold, he'll see no difference. In each case, he sees a coin vanish.

The method are different but the effect is the same. It's for that I wrote "transforme (or vanish) with paper" is the premisse of Coin Fold which is more elaborated.

For me, it's the same thing with the premisse of the Chop Cup as written here :
http://geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/Chop_Cup

Hoping you pardon my poor english.

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Joe Pecore » September 29th, 2010, 4:00 pm

I think the coin fold using a dollar bill routine that Mr. Farmer was thinking about is "Where did the Quarter Go?" in the May 1963, Linking Ring, page 64. It was in the Charles E. Penton Parade.

At the end there is a NOTE BY JOHN BRAUN: AL BAKER described a most ingenious way to leave the coin in an outside fold of the paper, for use with the square of paper Coin Foldsee the book AL BAKER'S WAYS AND MEANS, page 54. It's all done in showing the spectator how FAIR the fold is.
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 29th, 2010, 4:01 pm

Philippe, the distinction I am making is that in one method the paper can be destroyed - and is empty/innocent since the coin is long gone.
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Curtis Kam » September 29th, 2010, 4:21 pm

As pointed out by Bill Duncan, there's a very sneaky method for the fold, done in a dollar bill, by Steve Dusheck. It's in The New York Magic Symposium Close Up/Stage Collection Volume 2, or, along with a terrific lead-in production of a coin from a bill, in Mr. Duncan's "Coin, From Bill" manuscript.

Oh--and I just remembered, Bruce Cervon published some very interesting and very different ideas on how to cause a coin to vanish by wrapping it in a bill. In the "Cervon File", I think.

Long ago, I saw someone vanish a coin by folding it in flash paper, and setting it alight. The fold was legit. However, as he made the folds, the performer simply shoved the coin through the flash paper. Since all was to be burnt, there was no downside to making a tear. Does anyone know the pedigree of that idea?

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Richard Kaufman » September 29th, 2010, 4:29 pm

Uh, didn't I write that book? You'd thing I would remember the trick. Oh well ...
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Philippe Billot » September 29th, 2010, 5:06 pm

"quote=Jonathan Townsend]Philippe, the distinction I am making is that in one method the paper can be destroyed - and is empty/innocent since the coin is long gone."

OK, now I get it.
If you have Coining Magic by Marlo, there is this idea and other (like sleeving or lapping or Spectator wraps it up) page 10-11.

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Edwin Corrie » September 29th, 2010, 6:08 pm

Philippe could be right about the Buddha Papers being a precursor to the Coin Fold. Maybe the latter was developed precisely because the Buddha Papers can't be shown freely. The main argument against this is perhaps the fact that (at least until Will Blyth in 1923, if not before) the Buddha Papers were always used for a transformation rather than a vanish.

I used to have a version of the Buddha Papers that used several squares all folded up and nested one inside the other. One of them was double, as described by Scot, and you did the turnover discreetly as you unwrapped the package. This means that the last or innermost square is unprepared and can be shown freely. The only published source I can find for this is Pat Pages Tricks with Paper (1974), where its called the Hindoo Papers.

George Schindlers Magic with Everyday Objects describes the standard method but using a dollar bill, and Bobos New Modern Coin Magic has the standard method and also whats referred to as Frank Ducrots Coin Fold, which seems to be the same as Al Bakers from Magical Ways and Means. According to the description Frank Ducrot was doing it in the 1930s (i.e. before Magical Ways and Means). Maybe Al Baker got it from him, or vice versa, or it was a case of independent creation.

I also recall a marketed version with a silver foil disc which you rub over a coin to get an impression so you can pass it off as a real coin. The disc is genuinely wrapped in tissue and can be seen right up to the end, and then you crumple up the whole package.

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Joe Pecore » September 29th, 2010, 6:44 pm

>>I used to have a version of the Buddha Papers that used several
>>squares all folded up and nested one inside the other.

Kanter's Magic Shop Catalog was selling those (using different colored papers) as "The Buddha Mystery" as early as 1939.
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Richard Kaufman » September 29th, 2010, 6:58 pm

That version also appears in Mysto Magic sets starting in 1930 or so (I think). And the papers are in an envelope--a very nice way of handling it.
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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Philippe Billot » September 30th, 2010, 6:06 am

Hi Richard,

Do you remember if the trick is named "Buddha Papers" in the Mysto Magic Set because in Bart Whaley's Dmagic, he quotes Thayer's Catalog #8, 1936, as the point of departure.

Thanks in advance.

PS: In Will Blyth's Paper Magic (1920), the trick is named simply "Magic Purse"

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 30th, 2010, 8:02 am

Edwin Corrie "...a silver foil disc which you rub over a coin to get an impression so you can pass it off as a real coin. The disc is genuinely wrapped in tissue and can be seen right up to the end, and then you crumple up the whole package. "

I believe that was also in the Downs book - where stacks of coins are handled pretty much like the passe-passe bottles then vanished using foil gaffs and tissue paper tubes.

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Bob Farmer » September 30th, 2010, 3:57 pm

Joe Pecore is right -- It's Charles Penton not Charles Patton (I'm getting my magic and music mixed up).

In Fred Kaps's lecture notes he has a vanish where a coin is wrapped in paper and the paper torn to pieces. The secret: the paper is very thin and as the coin is wrapped up it is pushed through the paper. I came up with the same idea when I was in grade school so Kaps obviously stole it from me.

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Re: Coin Fold references

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 30th, 2010, 10:03 pm

Darn it Bob, I thought I invented it using a pre-torn coin envelope. Drat
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