Air Tag Magic Trick!

A few weeks ago I was hanging out with some magicians before the Justin Willman show in Seattle. One of the props we were jamming with was an Apple Air Tag. Here’s one of the more visually interesting things:

@louiefoxx AirTag Hack! #airtag #appleairtag ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

It’s an obvious trick to do with an AirTag, but the name lends itself to the trick. This is a trick I’ve wanted to do with an AirTag, but I stopped doing the muscle pass in 2020 and can’t do it anymore. Sure I could probably play with it for a week and relearn it, but I don’t really have a need for it anymore.

If you can muscle pass, this is a great and easy trick with a borrowed AirTag!

-Louie

Puzzle Coin!

puzzle coin by rolando medina

My friend Rolando Medina recently started selling Puzzle Coins! These are coins that he’s cut into a puzzle. These are really interesting, and there’s a ton of puns with the word puzzle that you could use.

“Do you want to see the most puzzling coin trick I do?” Then the coin turns into the puzzle pieces.

Here are a few ideas:

1: Show a half dollar.
This is a trick that takes me hours to figure out
Put the half dollar into your left hand, which makes a fist around it.
I never know if I should start with the edges or the middle…
Open you hand to reveal the puzzle pieces

2: Have a half dollar sitting on the table, you wave your hand over it and it turns into the puzzle half dollar!
– simply use a Raven and a shimmed shell

3: Could use it at a follow up to Karate Coin
After you stab the coin on your finger, you then smash the coin into little bits (not specifically revealing they’re puzzle pieces)


I think these coins are great for making social media videos as the close up video of them can really show off the detail.

I think he’s really underpriced them at $39.99 and they should be a few bucks more…but I’ll take them for cheaper than what I think they’re worth! Aside from using them, they are just cool to have on your shelf!

-Louie

Coin Transposition Routine

I’m still tweaking my routine with the Craig Petty’s Apparition Coin set. I was trying to eliminate the phases that use the coin purse. I ended up with a three phase routine, however it lacked the punch of the four phase routine that had the coin purse. Once I put the coin purse back in, it immediately was getting better reactions.

Here’s what the routine looks like:

I think the first phase is like a “flash opener” to a stage act. It’s a great visual moment, and sets people up for the transpositions that they are about to see. I’m glad I tested it both ways and have found the best way to do the routine!

-Louie

Apparition Coin Set

Apparition by craig petty

When I was at Stevens Magic Emporium a few weeks ago and picked up Craig Petty’s Apparition coin set, it got me doing coin magic again. For some reason I had stopped doing it in my close up set. One of the reasons that I had stopped was pocket space, there’s not a neat way to keep four silver dollars and a shell in your pocket along with everything else I need in my pockets.

The thing that getting the Apparition set got me to do was use a coin purse. Honestly, I’m against using a coin purse, as it’s not something that people see anymore. It might as well be a change bag, it resembles something older people see.

Think about it, when was the last time you saw someone use a coin purse that wasn’t a magician?

The Apparition coin set is a neat little bundle in my pocket, so I needed to figure out how to justify the coin purse. Then it hit me, it was one simple line, “This is my Nana’s coin purse, can you guess what’s inside?

That’s it.

That line solved the problem, now it’s not a strange prop.

I will say that as I’ve been using the gaffed coins, I’ve really phased out using the coin purse as a gimmick and it’s simply a holder for the coins. I think I’m going to go out and find a cool, vintage coin purse for my current coin routine to give it a bit more character.

-Louie

Coin Transposition

I’m working on a coin transpostion, it’s essentially something that I used to do a long time ago. I was inspired to play with it again after getting Craig Petty’s Apparition. This two phase routine uses just the two coins (and a shell).

The effect is a silver dollar and an Asian coin with a hole in it change places. First in your hands and the second time with one in your hand and one in someone from the audience’s hand.

Here’s the routine:

This is my Nana’s coin purse, do you know what’s inside it?

That’s right coins! I had a kid say, “your nana”…That’d be messed up if I just poured out her ashes.

There’s a silver dollar. That’s Dwight Eisenhower, he was a four start general, the 34th president of the United States and he did all of that while bald!

This is an ancient Asian token, it dates back to the Nintendo Dynasty. It says, “Our princess is in another castle”.

The Asian token goes in this hand and like the movie Freaky Friday, they change places!

Here you hang onto the coins. I’m going to take one from your hand…it’s the silver dollar.

Fist bump!

I’ve got the Asian token and you have…

…The silver dollar!


I feel like this needs a third phase. It’s a great two phase routine, but feels unfinished. I might play with adding a one coin routine to the end of it. That may give it a sense of closure.

-Louie

Steven’s Magic Emporium

A couple of weeks ago I was travelling from Nebraska to Arizona and drove a few hours out of my way to visit Steven’s Magic Emporium in Wichita, KS. I’ve gotten their catalog since I was a teenager and attended several of their Desert Magic Seminar conventions in Las Vegas as a teenager.

I think with my visit to Steven’s Magic Emporium I’ve hit all the major magic shops in the USA. I guess the only one that I haven’t been to is Daytona Magic, but I’ve worked their convention, so I feel like that counts.

Unfortunately when I was there, there weren’t any “magicians” working, so I had to tell them what I was looking for. That’s fine, however chatting and then having the person working the counter say, “have you seen…” is very helpful!

I did pick up Craig Petty’s Apparition. When I was in Grand Island, NE, Nate Myers showed it to me and it was similar to something I was working on. I also picked up a couple of other things, like some Hypno Heat for an idea I have.

This is a pretty cool coin transposition using a silver dollar and a Chinese coin. There’s a lot that can be done with the coin set, and I’m excited to start playing with it!

-Louie

Junk Magic from a Junk Shop

I was killing time between shows and was walking through a junk shop and they have a briefcase full of magic. They wanted too much for it at $60, so I negotiated a bit and got it for a reasonable price.

Most of the stuff was garbage, but there were a few cool things. There were four sets of Johnson Scotch and Soda sets and I have a buddy who uses that, so he now has a lifetime supply of them!

One of the interesting things was a trick called Space Coins.

It’s essentially a boston box, but it’s got the fake see through bottom that’s “black art” or more like red art. I’m not a fan of the fake see through thing were you needed to put the prop on a specific surface.

I will say I was super surprised when I tried it out of people that it got great reactions, so I’m not always right. It’s always good to be proven wrong.

-Louie

Roving Close Up Magic

In my roving magic shows in Arizona, my set was essentially two parts. The first part coin magic, which is about one third of the close up set. The second part is my card set which in the remaining two thirds of it.

Here’s a little highlight reel of my close up roving magic set:

@louiefoxx Close Up Magic at the Yavapai County Fair! #closeupmagic #cardtrick #cointrick #magician #sleightofhand #louiefoxx #yavapaicountyfair #prescott #arizona ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Sometimes I will another part to this, and that is the shell game. I don’t do the shell game for every group as it really needs to be the right group for it to play how I want it to play.

Also, I’m really digging Craig Petty’s Apparition coin set! One thing with it is I’m trying to use the purse less. Right now the coin set I’m doing with it has four parts and only the first two use the purse. I’ll probably write a bit more about what I’m doing with the Apparition coin set and why I’m doing it the way I am.

-Louie

Airpod Magic!

The other day I was trying to come up with some ideas of magic with Apple Airpods. The best idea that I came up with was a combination of an old sponge ball bit and a coin move as a two phase routine.

Here it is:

@louiefoxx Airpod trick! The 10 and 2! #airpod #headphone #appleairpod #apple #trick #10and2 #sleightofhand #louiefoxx #magic #magician #technology ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

The routine needs a third phase. What I want to do is hold the airpods in my hand and drop the case onto them and they airpods disappear and end up inside the case. That puts a nice third beat and ending to the trick.

For that, I need a duplicate set of airpods. So I couldn’t make the 3rd sequence happed the other day. I’m going to keep my eyes out for a cheap set of broken airpods.

-Louie

Audio Magic

When I was at FISM last summer a guy showed me a really cool stunt…it wasn’t really a magic trick. It was more like Paper Balls Over Head where the audience sees something and there was a bit of a payoff later. What happened was I sat in a chair and he had two coins. He clinked them together. You then closed your eyes and he clinked the coins and you pointed to where he was. You did this several times and the final time you heard the clink and pointed to where you heard the noise. Let’s say you pointed behind you, you opened your eyes and the guy was in front of you.

It was really cool and I’d never seen anything like it.

Last night I was reading Body Magic by John Fisher and guess what I found?

Yep, I found the principle for the trick that was written up in 1979! The version that I saw at FISM was definitely a more fleshed out version of the stunt, but it was fun to run into the trick in that book!

-Louie