Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

This illusion is produced as follows:--When you breathe upon the substitute coin, you naturally turn the left hand palm upwards. In the act of taking that coin in the right hand, which you do with the hands in the position depicted in Fig. 69, you drop the genuine coin, which was previously palmed in the right hand, into the left, the position of the hand concealing it from the audience. After a momentary pause, you close the left hand, and hold it extended about level with your eyes. At each of the words, “One, two, three,” you make a slight motion of the right hand towards it, and at the word “Pass,” palm the coin by means of Pass 1, at the same time making a half turn of your body to the left, opening the left hand, and pointing with the index finger of the right hand to the coin lying therein. While it is being examined for the mark, you drop the substitute, which remains palmed in your right hand, into the pochette on that side, and bring up your hand empty. Having proceeded thus far, borrow a second florin, but without in this case suggesting that it should be marked, breathe upon it, and lay it with that first used upon the table. Now with your right hand take up one of the coins, and by Pass 1 pretend to transfer it to the left, really retaining it in the palm of the right hand. Then take up the second coin between the fingers and thumb of the right hand, and announce that you are about to make the coins, which you now hold in each hand, come together. Holding your arms well apart, you make a motion with the left hand as if throwing something towards the right, at the same moment saying as before, “One, two, three! Pass!” and making the two coins in the right hand come together with an audible chink. You then open the hand, and show that the left is empty, and that both of the coins are together in the right hand.