money magic – MagicShow.Tips

Make Money Magic Work Onstage!

The Juggling Monte routine that I’m working on has taken another step closer to reality. One of the challenges that I identified early on was how to make a two dollar bill visibly different from a one dollar bill onstage. The solution was to write “lucky” on the back of it. Originally I thought writing it in pink, sparkly ink would be good, however I just made one with white ink with a black border and I think it looks great!

There’s not much to making this prop. I took a white paint pen and wrote lucky on the bill. Once it dried, I used a black Sharpie to do the outline. Finally, I took some matte clear spray paint and gave it a light coat to seal it. Hopefully the sealant will protect it from dinging or chipping.

I still need to write some jokes and figure out the routine, but it’s off to a good start. We’ll see how it actually plays for an audience.

-Louie

Upside Down Bill Gag

There’s the old trick in many beginner magic books where you have a dollar bill right-side up. You fold it, then unfold it, and it’s now upside down. I had an idea for that, and something like this has probably been done before.

Effect: You show a dollar bill that’s right side up. You fold it and unfold it, and now it’s upside down. You do it again, but this time you draw arrows pointing up on it. You fold it up again, and this time, when you unfold it, the arrows are pointing down, but the bill is still right side up!

There’s not much to it; it’s just a bill switch and two bills. The second bill has the arrows pointing down drawn on it. Any bill switch should work, but ideally, one that only requires you to fold the bill 2-3 times would be best.

This trick could also be done with the bill turning upside down, but the arrows still pointing up.

This is a fun little kicker trick to the old gag. As I said earlier, something similar to this has probably been done before.

-Louie

Evidence of a magic trick

One trick I’m not a big fan of is bill to orange/lemon/etc. It’s a overdone trick and usually it’s not a surprise to the audience when the bill is in the fruit. A notable exception to this is Nick Lewin’s Lemon Aid routine.

I do a routine that uses a dollar bill, but the dollar isn’t the focus of the trick. It felt like it had a loose end at the finish of the trick. One day I had the idea to make the bill come out of an orange at the end of the trick. What I like about this routine is that the bill doesn’t disappear, so it’s not obvious it’s in the orange immediately when the orange comes into the play.

Then I had to deal with how to give the wet dollar to the person. I found some Evidence bags, and wrote a gag with them.

Now at the end of the routine when I give the signed dollar to the person, I put it in the bag and let them keep it! It’s a fun way to deal with the wet sticky dollar and gets me a couple of laughs!

-Louie

Mike Bornstein’s Money Magic!

In the 1980’s and 1990’s Mike Bornstein had ads in magic magazines for his money magic. I found a set of his lecture notes and have been going through them. One of the tricks that I though was interesting was this torn and restored bill:

@louiefoxx The old hundred dollar magic trick! #magictrick #magic #magician #moneymagic #vintagemagictrick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

While the method now is fairly standard for torn and restored things, what makes his interesting is the tearing sequence. It’s backwards from how most are done. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse, but different!

Finding unexpected things is one the fun thing about all these old lecture notes!

-Louie

It’s the Same Trick!

Last summer when I decided to build up my TikTok account, I was told that posting consistently was the key. Posting something everyday is a ton of work and it burns a lot of material. I didn’t want to post just the current new trick that everyone was doing. What I settled on was original material and historical (vintage) material. I’ve been having a lot of fun with the vintage magic tricks! For the original stuff, I’ve found that I can get more mileage out of things if I can use the same trick in different forms.

Here’s an example of a packet trick with cards that I came up with:

@louiefoxx the purple #cardtrick #magictrick #cardmagic #magician #purple ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

And to get more than one video out of it, here’s the same trick done with money:

@louiefoxx What’s up with stocks? #stocks #stockmarket #money #magictrick #magician #magic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

For me this is a great way to get double the mileage out of something! Not only that, but it helps me create magic that’s not card tricks!

-Louie

Why Jrod Illusion is an A-hole

Sometimes “working” magicians are pieces of sh*t. I posted a video of a trick with bills on TikTok, and Joe Rodiguez (Jrod Illusions) decides to post how he thinks it works. That’s part of TikTok’s game with magic videos for amateur magicians and I understand that and am OK with that. But when a supposed working magician exposes stuff, it’s makes me want to post on all of their videos how they do stuff. I won’t because that gives them engagement, which is TikTok gold.

OK, so here’s the video:

@louiefoxx The Eighty Dollar Trick! #magictrick #money #twenty #magic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Ok, you’ve seen the video, now here’s his comment:

Here’s the problem with his comment…he’s 100% wrong. Like a beginner magician should know there are no magnets involved in the trick…and he calls himself a professional. It really makes me wonder about the quality of the material of his show based on the lack of knowledge displayed in that comment. While I haven’t seen his show, I would suspect it’s pretty much garbage tricks done poorly by someone who doesn’t understand magic. I could be wrong, and that’s just my opinion.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Joe Rodiguez (Jrod Illusions).

-Louie

Money Across

In playing with the fake “Movie Money” another trick I wanted to do was something like a card across where a selected bill travels from one packet to another.

This is the solution that I came up with:

@louiefoxx The $400 magic trick! #magictrick #money #moneymagic #trick #400 #magician ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I like how this trick turned out, it’s got a less packet trick feel to it that many of these other tricks do. I think it feels very similar to Phil Goldstein’s Shinkansen, but has a different method.

-Louie

More Money Magic

A strange little trick that I came up with using some money:

@louiefoxx Magic trick with money! #magictrick #money #moneymagic #tendollars #forty ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

It’s interesting, but not the greatest trick ever. There’s too much process, it needs to be more direct for it to be good. I like the idea of the upside down bill moving up the stack. It reminds me of a trick that Alan Ackerman (I think) showed me when I was a teenager in the 1990’s with a stack of coins. It was 3 half dollars and an English penny. The English penny started on the bottom of the stack and moved up to the top one position at a time.

This trick with the upside down ten dollar bill moving up the stack was an early experiment with rough and smooth with bills. This one used different areas being roughed and I think that has possibilities with bills.

Here’s another trick with roughed zones on bills:

@louiefoxx Making money like magic! #magic #money #dollar #mineymagic #onehundreddollars #moneyhack ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I’m having fun playing with the bill magic!

-Louie

Packet Tricks with Money by Larry West

Recently I’ve been playing with packet trick techniques using money instead of cards. I discovered this set of lecture notes by Larry West that has two trick using bills like cards for a packet trick style effect.

The two tricks is the lecture notes are very similar, in fact they are the same effect, but with different methods. One uses a gaffed bill and the other doesn’t. I think that one of the reasons that money packet trick magic isn’t really a thing is because to make any gaffed bills, like a one dollar bill with a ten on the backside might be crossing the line with what’s legal or not. Also the cost to put them out as you’d have to add the cost of the bills to the trick.

Anyway, here are the two money tricks from Larry West’s lecture notes:

@louiefoxx Cheating the con man! #magictrick #magic #money #conman #counting #math #magiciam #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Hustling the Hustler! #magictrick #money #magic #moneymagic #hustle #con #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I’m not sure which version is better.

-Louie

More Money Packet Tricks!

A few days ago I posted a video of a packet trick where 4 one dollar bills turned into 4 two dollar bills. It’s essentially a packet card trick with dollar bills. Turning $1’s into $2’s is alright, but I got to playing with a slightly different arrangement that I like more:

@louiefoxx How to make money with bad math! #money #magic #math #magictrick #dollar #hundred #moneymagic #badmath ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

The bills changing into different bills makes the trick feel a little less like the same trick four times. Also the ending with the hundred dollar bill seems like more of a finish to the trick.

-Louie