Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

A further improvement may be made in the trick by using, in place of an ordinary plate, a special plate or salver, generally made of tin japanned, but sometimes of crockery or china. The speciality of this plate (which is known as the “money plate,” or “multiplying salver”) consists in a flat space running along its bottom, between its upper and under surface, just wide enough and deep enough to hold concealed a row of coins (florins or shillings, as the case may be), and closed at the one end, but open at the other, the opening being concealed by the edge of the plate. (See Fig. 80.) You prepare the plate beforehand by placing in the concealed space three, four, or six coins, and place it on your table. When you first take it up, you take hold of it near the opening, when you may, of course, handle it as freely as you please, as, the mouth of the passage being upwards, the coins cannot possibly fall out. Letting the plate hang downwards in a perpendicular position, and passing it carelessly from hand to hand, the audience cannot help observing that you have nothing concealed in your hands. Then collect (or count out, if already collected) the money in the plate, and, after taking away and handing to A a number equal to the coins concealed, pour the remainder direct from the plate into the hands of B, first, however, so reversing the position of the plate (which you may do by merely transferring it from the one hand to the other) as to turn the opening of the passage away from you. When you now slope the plate to pour the remaining coins into his hands, the money in the concealed passage will naturally pour out with them (see Fig. 80), thus making the required addition with hardly a possibility of detection.