Abraham Presley

I have a really strong trick to talk about today. It has one significant drawback, which is why almost no one besides me will do it. But it’s worth talking about regardless.

The body of the trick isn’t something I came up with. But I’ve put together a few different pieces that work well together to give us a very strong trick, with a crazy Rep, and an impossible souvenir.

I’ll walk you through it.

Part 1 - The (Failed) Prediction

In Part 1, I borrow a bill from a spectator and say I’m going to make a prediction on it. I write something on it with a Sharpie and set the bill, writing-side down, on the table.

I tell my friend I have a list of 100 famous people on my phone. I say I’m going to predict which one they will randomly choose. And if I get it right, I get the dollar.

I ask them to name a number between 1 and 100

They name 13. It’s Abraham Lincoln.

I pause and look at what I wrote down.

Then I say, “Yup, I nailed it. It’s Abraham Lincoln without his hat or his beard, and with the word ‘Elvis’ written next to him.”

I turn over the bill and they see this:

“Let me make this a little clearer.”

I then draw a top hat and a beard on the picture. And cross out “Elvis.” So now it’s some weird George Washington, Elvis, Abraham Lincoln hybrid.

“Okay. That trick is a work in progress,” I say.

This phase uses DFB to force Lincoln.

Part 2 - The Materializing Bill

Part two is a single phase using Craig Petty’s Chop gimmick.

I highlighted this phase in the first issue of the Love Letters newsletter. For those who don’t have that, there is a phase where a dollar that’s been rolled into a ball disappears and “materializes” under an empty cup that’s overturned on the spectator’s hand. This is an incredible moment of magic. It’s too good to just be shoved in a long multi-phase, cup and ball type trick. I feel it gets lost in Craig’s full routine. It should be separated out. At least when performing socially. This is magic that they feel happening. And it’s quite difficult to come up with any explanation for what happened.

I’ve been doing this one phase on its own for a few months now.

Here’s how I use it in this situation…

A little while after the failed prediction (anywhere from 2 to 20 minutes—I do this trick at a cafe/bar/restaurant ) I will ask for their help with something else I’ve been working on.

I mention that I’ve been practicing something. “When it works it looks like something vanished and reappeared. But it’s more accurate to say it dematerializes and rematerializes.”

I take the bill from earlier and crumple it into a ball. I then do that phase from from Petty’s Chop where the bill disappears from my hand and appears under the cup in their hand. Supporters can read the details of my handling and tips for this effect in the first newsletter. But even if you don’t have access to it, you’ll figure something out that works, as far as how to do that moment as a stand-alone thing. It’s not that difficult.

This always gets a strong reaction.

The Rep

I give the bill back.

At some point, depending on the situation and how much they’re focused on the bill itself. They will either immediately say, “What the hell happened here?” Or it may take them longer to notice. It depends on when they uncrumple the bill and how much attention they’re paying to it.

Because, you see, when they eventually un-ball the bill and look at it, it looks like this.

I play this very low-key at this point.

“Oh damn. Yeah, that’s my bad. When the bill rematerializes, if you don’t have complete focus on it, it can get really screwed up. I still haven’t perfected some aspects of the trick. That’s why I wanted to try it out with you.”

This botched reappearance of the bill is one of those things I love that makes perfect sense, but only if you presuppose a world where a bill really could vanish and rematerialize. It’s not something that makes sense in the “It must have been sleight-of-hand” world. This is next-level weird.

Final Thoughts

At first, I thought of doing that thing where you fold their bill into quarters, switch it for the mis-made bill (which you can’t really tell is mis-made in the folded condition) then have them sign it, so they end up with a signed mis-made bill.

But I just don’t find that very convincing. Having them sign it when folded. And having their signature in one quarter of the mis-made bill is not that difficult to figure out if you work backwards. The ideal would be if they signed it across the bill and then when it was mis-made their signature was all jumbled up. But that’s not possible as far as I know.

Then I thought I would use a prediction effect as a “pseudo signature.” Making the bill apparently “unique.” And originally I was getting the prediction correct. But I realized that wasn’t the strongest way to do it. If I could somehow predict they would name Elvis. Then having a duplicate bill in this crazy condition with Elvis on it wouldn’t be that difficult. (I’ve already done the difficult thing: predicting which celebrity they’d choose.)

But what if I got the prediction wrong? Then I’d have this bill modified in such a way that included their “freely chosen” famous person. A person that is so obviously “freely chosen,” because if it wasn’t, I would have predicted it, of course! The psychology here is, I think, pretty strong. In the 1000s of hours I’ve spent coaxing method guesses out of spectators, they’ve never suggested something as devious as, “I bet he had a way to force me to choose Abraham Lincoln. And he purposefully got it wrong so he could mark the bill in a seemingly unique way that would appear innocent because it was a failure.” That’s a bit more complex than the type of solutions they come up with.

Now, I don’t ever say, “And obviously it’s the same bill because it has my modified prediction to look like your chosen person, Abe Lincoln.” I never mention anything like that. These are two separate things. One, a prediction that didn’t work. And one a vanish and reappearance of a bill that sort of worked, but got a little screwed up.

This leaves them with a pretty fascinating souvenir—the mis-made bill with the “unique” marking, now spread out across the bill.

The reason I said you probably won’t do this much is that mis-made bills cost like $8-$10 at least. But I feel it’s worth the investment.

Oh! The switch. I switch one balled up bill for the other using a shuttle pass or whatever feels right at the time, after the bill has materialized. You could likely work out a switch using the Chop gimmick, since it’s already in play. I just haven’t bothered doing that.