The finger palm

This grip is the secret of the trick and of most coin magic. Learn it before anything else.

  1. Place the coin. Hold your right hand palm up and lay the coin across the base of your second and third fingers, roughly where the fingers meet the palm.
  2. Curl. Curl those two fingers in slightly, just enough to hold the coin in place. Your hand should look like a hand at rest, not a fist.
  3. Turn it over. Turn the hand palm down and let it hang at your side. The coin stays put. If it falls, curl a touch more; if your hand looks like a claw, curl less.
  4. Check in a mirror. Look at the back of your hand from the front and from the sides. Relaxed fingers, loose thumb, nothing to see.

The finger palm rule: a hand holding a coin should look like a hand holding nothing. Practise walking around, picking up a glass, or pointing with the index finger while the coin stays finger palmed.

The production

  1. Load in advance. Get the coin into finger palm out of sight: as you take your hand out of a pocket, while reaching for a napkin, or before you sit down.
  2. Notice something. Look at your volunteer’s ear with mild professional concern. Do not announce a trick. “Hold still. You have something there.”
  3. Reach in. Bring your right hand up beside their ear, fingers toward the back of their head. The back of your hand faces them.
  4. Push it up. Behind the ear, use your thumb to slide the coin from the finger palm up to your fingertips. This takes half a second and happens out of their view.
  5. Bring it out. Draw the hand forward with the coin held at the fingertips, as if you plucked it from the hairline. Show it, then hand it over.

Do it twice

Children will ask to see it again, and the second time is better if you are ready. Keep a second coin in your pocket. While they examine the first coin, put your hand in your pocket “for a napkin”, come out with the second coin finger palmed, and produce it from the other ear. Never try a third time from the same ear.

Angles

Keep the palm of the producing hand facing you or facing down until the coin is at your fingertips. Small children often stand very close, which is fine; they look at the ear, not your knuckles.

Next: The coin through the elbow