A Sincere Apology

January has been my month off for the past few years. And this year it’s not really time “off,” it’s time where I’m writing the next book which is coming out in a few months.

But had I known Ellusionist would be releasing a non-functioning watch that you stick special coins to in order to make them disappear, I would have put the next book off for another year, so I could devote this month to making fun of this goofball product.

So I owe you all a sincere apology for not being here for you as I should be during this time.

Walking around with a non-working “generic smart watch” for the purpose of vanishing a special coin is not a healthy, robust approach to performing magic. It feels more like a cry for help. Personally, I would be depressed every time I looked at my fake watch. “What am I doing with myself?” I’d ask. In general it’s a bad idea to have a physical reminder of your own inadequacies that you see frequently.

It’s like owning a fake-vagina, “male masturbator.”

Does it feel better than just using you hand? I don’t know, maybe. But at least when you’re done with your hand, you can go and get on with your life. You don’t have to wash, disinfect, and store a giant set of silicone hips for your loved ones to discover when they organize your possessions for the estate sale. When you’re done using your hand you don’t have to end up looking at this monstrosity (as you would look at the phony smartwatch) and think, “Is this what I’ve been reduced to?”

My point is, if you want to vanish a coin, just use your goddamn hands.

The truth is, the vanishes with this watch just don’t look that good. That’s why they don’t show you them in the trailer. It looks like something sketchy happens with the coin and your watch. Then you have to point out that the coin isn’t under your watch. So from the spectator’s perspective what is supposed to be happening here? “He said he was going to vanish the coin, and then he did something a little odd. I thought it was under his watch. But then he removed his El Fako Brand, non-working watch and I didn’t see the coin there. Maybe I missed something? At any rate, then I ended up finding a coin in my pocket.” Like I just don’t think that structure has anywhere near the cleanliness and beauty of a coin vanish that you can get with sleight-of-hand or something like the Raven.

But hey, it’s $30. Ellusionist is usually pretty fair on their pricing when they think they have something that’s not quite a home-run. Look, if there was a way to cleanly vanish a coin, away from the body, without sleeves, and without skill, in a manner that wasn’t inherently weak or suspicious, I guarantee you it would cost more than $30, because that would be the holy grail of coin magic.

You already bought this? Okay, I think your best bet here is to lean into the weaknesses. This isn’t going to be a great tool for a super clean coin vanish. Since it looks like your watch is involved, it makes sense to make that the focus of your presentation. You’re going to “teach” them how you first learned to vanish a coin. “You take the coin, and when people aren’t looking, it goes under your hand and is secretly placed under your watch.” You flash both sides of your hands to show the coin is “gone.” You can even admit, “This isn’t even a real watch. It’s just a cheap hunk of shit I picked up to practice with.” You go on, “Of course, some people know this secret, so with them you have to use a more advanced technique.” And you remove the watch and show the coin is gone completely. They now ask—or you goad them into asking—where the coin is. “Under the watch” you say. They look back to the watch to figure out what you’re talking about, “Oh, no. Sorry. Not my watch.” And the coin has reappeared under the spectator’s watch. So the vanish would just be a part of a coin under spectator’s watch type of routine. (You can find at least a couple versions of this plot on Penguin for $5).

I would guess others have probably already suggested combining these two things. I’m not saying it’s the greatest idea in the world, but it is a nice full-circle sort of effect. So you don’t have an awkward vanish, followed by the weak “no it’s not under my watch” moment, followed by a reappearance in a random place. Instead you have this thing that starts off as a kind of “exposure,” which gets ramped up with a magical moment, and then a climax that is surprising but in its own way “logical” within the presentation. And you wouldn’t even have to wear this gross looking thing on your wrist all night. You could openly put it on before going into the trick as part of your explanation on this “method to vanish a coin.”

While I think that’s a reasonable use for this prop, I don’t think I’ll be picking one up. The question I—and all serious magicians—will now have to ask ourselves is, “Do I want to be able to vanish a coin or do stack work with cards?” Because, brother, until they combine these two awesome tools into one, you simply can’t do both.