A coin sits on the table under an upside-down glass, which is covered by a napkin. You tap the napkin, lift it, and the glass has gone. The coin is still there.
✨ Level 2: Conjurer
⏱ 15 minutes to learn
🪙 Coins
🎒 Ages 7+
A bit of setting up, or ten to twenty minutes of practice.
👶 Small parts! Keep them away from little brothers and sisters, and never put one in your mouth.👶 Coins are a choking risk for little ones under 4: keep them off the floor and out of small hands.
What you need
The secret
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Sit at a table with your lap below the edge, and wear something with a lap: this trick needs somewhere for the glass to land quietly.
Misdirection is deciding where people look. If you look at your right hand, your audience looks there too, and your left hand can do the secret. A question or a joke at the right moment moves attention just as well as a big gesture.
How do you make a coin disappear?
The easiest way is the Coin Fold: you wrap a coin in paper, let everyone feel that it's still in there, and while you fold, the coin quietly slides out into your hand. Then you tear the paper up and it's gone.
A coin sits on the table under an upside-down glass, which is covered by a napkin. You tap the napkin, lift it, and the glass has gone. The coin is still there. It's a level 2 conjurer trick for ages 7 to 12 (grades 2nd–6th), takes 15 minutes to learn, and needs 3 things you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.
The secret
The napkin holds the shape of the glass, so when you slide the glass off the back of the table into your lap, the napkin stands there looking exactly as it did.
What you need
A coin
A clear glass or plastic cup
A cloth napkin or handkerchief with a hem
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Sit at a table with your lap below the edge, and wear something with a lap: this trick needs somewhere for the glass to land quietly.
How to do it
Put the coin on the table and stand the glass upside down over it.
Cover the glass with the napkin and press it down so it takes the shape.
Say you will make the coin vanish. Lift the napkin and glass to check: still there.
Put them back, slide them towards you, and let the glass drop into your lap.
Tap the napkin, then squash it flat. The glass has gone instead.
Magic words to say
“Watch the coin. Keep watching the coin. Whatever happens, do not take your eyes off the coin. ...You weren't watching the glass, were you.”
Pro tips
Telling them to watch the coin is the misdirection, and it is said out loud. The best misdirection is often an honest instruction about the wrong thing.
A plastic glass lands in your lap quietly. A real one does not: start with plastic.
Sit square to the table with the edge against you, so there is no gap for the glass to fall through.
If something goes wrong
If the glass clinks, laugh and say "well, now you know". Lift the napkin and show the vanish anyway. Everyone enjoys having been fooled about which thing was vanishing.
Safety notes
Small parts! Keep them away from little brothers and sisters, and never put one in your mouth.
Coins are a choking risk for little ones under 4: keep them off the floor and out of small hands.
Sit at a table.
Only from the front.
No fire, no flames and nothing sharp in a child's hand anywhere in the Magic Shop. Nothing ever goes in a mouth, a nose or an ear.
What kind of trick is this?
💨 Vanish. Something disappears. Almost every trick ever invented is one of eight kinds, and knowing which one you're watching is how magicians work out how a new trick is done.
The skill it teaches:Misdirection. People look where you look. Perform it and it counts towards the Coin Conjurer badge.
Questions about the glass vanish
What is misdirection?
Misdirection is deciding where people look. If you look at your right hand, your audience looks there too, and your left hand can do the secret. A question or a joke at the right moment moves attention just as well as a big gesture.
How do you make a coin disappear?
The easiest way is the Coin Fold: you wrap a coin in paper, let everyone feel that it's still in there, and while you fold, the coin quietly slides out into your hand. Then you tear the paper up and it's gone.