Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

THE HALF-CROWN (OR FLORIN) WAND.--This is a wand, apparently of ebony, but really of brass, japanned black. It is about twelve inches in length, and five-eighths of an inch in diameter. On one side of it, and so placed as to be just under the ball of the thumb when the wand is held in the hand, is a little stud, which moves backwards and forwards for a short distance (about an inch and a quarter), like the sliding ring of a pencil-case. When this stud is pressed forward, a half-crown or florin, as the case may be, appears on the opposite end of the wand (see Fig. 93), retiring within it when the stud is again drawn back. The half-crown is a genuine one, but is cut into three portions, as indicated in Fig. 94, which represents a transverse section of it at right angles to the actual cuts. Each of the three segments is attached to a piece of watch-spring, and from the direction of the cuts it is obvious that, when these pieces of watch-spring are pressed together (as they naturally are when drawn back into the wand), c will be drawn behind, and a in front of b. (See Fig. 95.) [Illustration: FIG. 93. FIG. 94. FIG. 95. The wand is used as follows:--The performer palms in his left hand as many half-crowns as he intends to produce. Then, taking the wand in the right hand, and lightly touching with it the spot whence he desires to (apparently) produce a half-crown, he pushes forward the stud, and the split coin appears on the opposite end of the wand. He now draws the upper part of the wand through the left hand, at the same moment pressing back the stud, and causing the split coin to retire within the wand, immediately handing for examination with the left hand one of the half-crowns already placed there, and which by this gesture he appears to have just taken from the top of the wand. This is again repeated, and another half-crown exhibited, till the stock in the left hand is exhausted.