Magic tricks where something jumps

What a transposition is

A transposition is a jump: something leaves one place and turns up somewhere else. A rubber band hops from two fingers to the other two, a card moves from one pile to another, coins cross from one hand to the other.

The secret is that it moved before anybody was watching, or it never moved at all. These suit helpers, because the audience can hold one end of the trick, which makes the jump impossible from where they sit. Say where the thing is going before it goes, so everybody is watching the wrong place.

By level, 1 Apprentice (works the first try), 6 Conjurer (a little practice) and 3 Wizard (days of practice). They come off 4 shelves of the shop, most from The Card Cabinet (5) and The Everyday Shelf (2). What you need most often: cards (5), a coin (2), a rubber band (1). None has a step only a grown-up can do, and 4 tricks carry the choking note for brothers and sisters under 4. The quickest to learn is The Linking Paper Clips (2 minutes); the longest is The Two-Coin Jump (3 to 5 days).

Every trick there is falls into one of eight kinds. How magicians do a transposition is in our post on the eight secrets behind every magic trick.