A friend secretly drops some coins into a cup, and only they know how many. You add a few of your own and promise to turn their number round, odd into even or even into odd. They say which theirs was, you tip out the cup and count, and the total is the other one every time.
🌟 Level 1: Apprentice
⏱ 5 minutes to learn
🪙 Coins
🎒 Ages 7+
Works by itself, or one simple move. It works the first try.
👶 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.
They don't hear your thoughts. Mind-reading tricks use maths that always lands on the same answer, a secret peek, or a code agreed with a partner beforehand. Magicians who do mind tricks are called mentalists.
What is the easiest magic trick?
The Rubber Pencil. Hold a pencil loosely near one end and wiggle it up and down, and it looks bendy, like rubber. You can learn it in under a minute, and it works the very first try.
A friend secretly drops some coins into a cup, and only they know how many. You add a few of your own and promise to turn their number round, odd into even or even into odd. They say which theirs was, you tip out the cup and count, and the total is the other one every time. It's a level 1 apprentice trick for ages 7 to 11 (grades 2nd–5th), takes 5 minutes to learn, and needs 2 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
You always add an odd number of coins: one, three or five. Odd plus even makes odd, and odd plus odd makes even, so an odd number of coins always turns the answer round.
What you need
A coin
A paper or plastic cup
How to do it
Split ten coins into two piles: some for your friend and some for you.
Turn away while your friend drops some of theirs into the cup, counting in secret.
Turn back and say: "Odd or even, whatever you put in, I'll turn it into the other."
Drop in some of yours one at a time, counting to yourself: always one, three or five.
Only now ask: "Was your number odd or even?"
Tip out the cup and count every coin together. The total is the other one.
Magic words to say
“Numbers have moods: some are odd and some are even. I can change a number's mood without ever knowing what the number is.”
Pro tips
Change how many you add each time, one, then three, then five, so nobody spots a pattern.
Do it three times in a row. Once looks like luck; three times looks like magic.
Drop your coins in loudly, one at a time, so everyone hears that you couldn't have counted theirs.
If something goes wrong
If the total comes out wrong, somebody miscounted. Count again together in pairs: pairs make odd and even easy to see.
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.
Needs a helper.
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.
Why it works
An odd number is some pairs with one left over. Adding an odd number of coins adds one more left-over coin: it either pairs up with theirs, or it is left alone. So odd always becomes even and even always becomes odd, whatever the numbers are.
What kind of trick is this?
🔮 Prediction. You knew all along, or you read their mind. 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:Patter: what you say. A trick is a story, not a thing that happens. Perform it and it counts towards the Coin Conjurer badge.
Questions about odd or even
How do magicians read minds?
They don't hear your thoughts. Mind-reading tricks use maths that always lands on the same answer, a secret peek, or a code agreed with a partner beforehand. Magicians who do mind tricks are called mentalists.
What is the easiest magic trick?
The Rubber Pencil. Hold a pencil loosely near one end and wiggle it up and down, and it looks bendy, like rubber. You can learn it in under a minute, and it works the very first try.