Tag: sketch money

Breaking In Tricks…..

Before my show at a library I did some tricks that I’m working on as my preshow. One of the tricks is a dollar production called Sketch Money by Joao Miranda. It’s a drawing of a dollar bill that turns into a real dollar bill and other I did was the gypsy thread. Sketch Money … Continue reading “Breaking In Tricks…..”

Before my show at a library I did some tricks that I’m working on as my preshow. One of the tricks is a dollar production called Sketch Money by Joao Miranda. It’s a drawing of a dollar bill that turns into a real dollar bill and other I did was the gypsy thread.


Sketch Money played better than I thought it would, and I added a switch at the end to get rid of the gimmicked dollar bill. Basically I’m going an “under the box” type switch with the pad of paper instead of a box. It worked well, and I thought there’d be a ton of heat after the dollar production, but there was none. That was very unexpected.


The Gypsy Thread trick from a technical end is fine, I just need to work on selling the end. The trick is missing the magic moment. I think I need to verbally tell them what’s going to happen right before it does happen. I’m doing this trick for kids, and I think the moment of licking the string overshadows the restoration. The string licking is a very funny moment for the kids. I need some more separation between it and the restoration, and to give the restoration a magic moment, like a snap.


I’m happy with how these tricks are coming along and both are for my summer library shows, so hopefully they’ll be solid tricks by the end of the season.

Sketch Money…

Right now I’m on the road performing in Alaska and I tend to practice more when I travel than when at home. There are a few reasons for this, but the big one is that I think I just have less distractions. All of the things that I can use to put off practicing at … Continue reading “Sketch Money…”

Right now I’m on the road performing in Alaska and I tend to practice more when I travel than when at home. There are a few reasons for this, but the big one is that I think I just have less distractions. All of the things that I can use to put off practicing at home don’t exist in a hotel room in another state.


Right now I’m working on a trick with a dollar called Sketch Money by Joao Miranda.

For my summer show I needed a way to produce a dollar bill and I remember seeing a review of this trick. This is follow up to the trick Sketch, which was a similar production of a card. The one with the dollar bill was also very poorly reviewed, where the card got good reviews.


I think the main reason for the difference in reviews was that the card one was better for close up where the dollar one has a problem, that can really only be solved by distance between you and the audience. I think most of the people that bought it were looking for a close up trick and that’s the why no one liked it.


The solution on the instructional video was for you to simply step back 6 feet from the audience. That’s a horrible solution to the problem, as it’s strange if you are table hopping and doing stuff under the audience’s noses, then step back two meters. This is a platform trick, not a close up.


I did some reworking of the gimmick to make it slimmer, and I’ve got some ideas to improve it even more, however they were beyond what I could make in a hotel room. The gimmick supplied could be made better, however I understand why it is the way it is. It’s got to be made to hit a price point, and make it reasonably easy for the average person to be able to make.


This is where being willing to rebuild something you paid for is a good trait. You can take something and make it better than the mass market version. Your custom version will be better 99% of the time!