Two Into Three - Multiplying Coin Illusion

Effect : A magician has two coins in his hand when he starts to rub them it looks like a third is appearing and when he opens his hand there are now three coins.

Performance: Hold two coins flat on top of each other between your thumb and forefinger, sideways to the audience. Say you will make an extra coin by rubbing them together.

You then rub the coins together and a third coin appears. You then close the coins in your fist and when you open your hand out, you are seen to be holding three coins.

You Need: Three of the same type of coin.

You need to have one of the coins hidden in a finger palm position. ( That is when a coin is hidden in your slightly curled fingers as shown in the photo below here. )

Method : Place two coins between your first finger and thumb. Now rub the two coins quickly backwards and forwards against each other. It should now look as if there are three coins, not two.

It is almost certain that a spectator will mention that this is only an optical illusion.

Now is the time to close your fist and re open it showing all three coins.

This trick needs a little practice to get the speed of the rubbing of the coins to look that a third one is appearing, once you got it, it looks very effective.

The beauty of this coin trick is that it requires very little set up and very little equipment and can be performed almost anywhere.

A good source to enable you to learn coin magic and sleights is Modern Coin Magic: 116 Coin Sleights and 236 Coin Tricks which is a highly regarded book to help you learn some coin tricks.