Tag: johnson products

Nickel To Half Dollar by Joe Berg

I was playing with Joe Berg’s Nickel to Half Dollar and it’s an interesting gimmicked coin. Essentially it’s a coin that turns from a nickel into a half dollar. What I like about it is that the coin expands to the larger size. What I don’t like about it is the strange two handed grip you have to have on the nickel and that there are better ways to turn a nickel into a half dollar.

I came up with little transposition routine that uses the coin.

@louiefoxx Easy magic trick! #magictrick #cointrick #magic #nickel #halfdollar #coins #louiefoxx #switch #how #magiciansoftiktok ♬ Money – Pink Floyd

It’s not much, however I think the clean up at the end where I steal the the half shell off of the card is interesting and then allows me to show “both sides” of the Nickel to Half Dollar gimmick.

This is a video only trick, it really wouldn’t play in the real world as the Nickel To Half Dollar isn’t really practical to set and then properly hold with people watching you.

It’s a fun gimmick to play with!

-Louie

Challenges Extracting Silver…

I’ve been working on this Silver Extraction coin trick style routine at the fair this week. I’ve learned a lot. First of all, I think the more complex method I’ve come up with to switch the coins, has some advantages over simply doing a shuttle pass. A shuttle pass is a solid method for doing the trick, however the advantage of my complex method is that I can hold the coin more openly after the switch.

One of the problems I’ve encountered working on this is getting the shell to stick to the magnet on the lighter. The solution was simple, I added a second magnet to the lighter and some more shim steel to the shell coin.

Having more magnets and more steel to grab solved the problem. The lighter really firmly attaches to the coin.

Another thing that I’ve learned about the trick is that I need to call attention to the three layer of the coin. Most people have noticed the layers, but never really thought about them. The trick has been getting great responses from the people at the fair this week. I really like how strange the trick is.

Silver Extraction…

Many years ago when I was working at Market Magic Shop, I used to demo and sell a trick called Silver Extraction. The effect is you take a half dollar and it ends up turning into a blob of silver and a clear coin. Then at some point someone made a coin that was just the copper center of a half dollar. I don’t know what the routine was, but I’m going to assume it was a similar effect.

I always thought it would be great paired with the blob of silver that came with the Johnson Silver Extraction. Unfortunately they stopped making the Silver Extraction a long time ago, so that was something I never did. Well, recently I came across one of the blobs of silver and bought it.

Now that I have the two of them, I can try it out!

-Louie