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Craig Petty Lecture on 'Accessible Coin Magic'
Reviewed by Kevin Gallagher
When I first started in magic, like many, one of the first tricks I learned was
a version of ‘Professor’s Nightmare’ which involved collecting the six ends
together in a bundle and, after a bit of fiddling, pulled them apart to show the
appropriate if not totally convincing transformation. I can remember Daryl
Martinez lecturing a technique with far greater finesse that turned the clumsy
party trick into a beautiful piece of visual magic. This was something of a
milestone and brought home rather forcibly that what I was doing at the time was
a long way short of where rope magic had evolved to.
On some occasions still, usually at the likes of FFFF or FISM, I see the work of
other magicians in some magic discipline or other that have acted as a wake up
call that I am a little behind the times again. So it was with Craig’s lecture
on coin magic.
For twenty years, I have generally been using little more than an extra coin or
have occasionally succumbed to an expanded shell or copper-silver coin. Although
I have a drawer full of Hopping-halves and the like, they have rarely managed to
make it into my working repertoire. Craig’s lecture served to show that I have
simply not moved with the times with modern gimmicked coin offerings, combined
with sleight-of-hand, providing a true elevation in the art of coin magic with a
cleanliness of effect simply going beyond what is possible with a trusty old
expanded shell.
Some years ago, I played around with a flipper coin with an undeceptively thin
flap, and had read poor accounts of split-coins. In both cases, the quality of
the coins that Craig offers are outstanding improvements. They are well packaged
and are supplied with instructional DVDs that include a wealth of material from
which to start developments that will almost certainly make it into service.
There are other items in the lecture including some very commercial card magic
with blank cards but it is the furthing of coin magic that make the biggest
mark.
Craig’s lecture is aimed at bringing strong visual coin magic well within reach
of everyone that might have previously imagined that to achieve such effects was
beyond them and easily practical for most working magicians.
For what has become something of a rarity these days, I actually dug deep at the
end of the lecture and came away with a small pile of goods. It is fair to say
that Craig’s lecture has provided me with the inspiration and motivation to lift
my coin magic and that in a few months time, I will be a better magician for
having attended.
- A very worthwhile lecture and little surprise that it is in high demand.
© Kevin Gallagher, January 2009