exposure?

I think "Dough" is an anticlimax to stealth pen.

And I agree that the heat should be on the bill, not the pen. Use your own bill. Ask an audience member for their own bill, and then almost as an afterthought, say that you'll use you own. Many people may accept it, but the people who are paying attention may think something's up with the bill. That's good.

Borrow the bill, get the pen, and to test the pen, scribble on the bill a bit. Then stick the pen through the bill. Make sure that they can still see the scribble, but don't call attention to it. Then after taking the pen out, hand the bill out. Still don't call attention to the scribble, but those following the plot would realise that it's the same bill.

Also, try handling the bill in a slightly unnatural way to give the audience suspicion that it's gimmicked. Don't make it obvious - try to aim to get to them on a subconcious level.

1. manage your audience (i know it gets old hearing it) so they dont care what pen it is.

2. tell them you never repeat effects (which you shouldnt)

3. say no thank you, i dont want to perform right now. just saying no works wonders most of the time. but be certain you take the emphasis off the pen.

The bill handling idea is really good I think. While they're checking the bill, do anything else you might need to do...

mwnewman yo you jus expose dude i agree cjl46

I agree. I do this trick all the time in a restaurant. I have almost never had anyone ask me to use another pen or to use their pen. Since I do not have to do a pen switch and I immediately set the pen down on the table for examination after handing back the bill, the focus of examining the bill and the impossibility of what just happened, seems to take over the spectators mind. You are correct that the focus should be on the bill at the end of the trick. However, I have found that when their are at least 2 people present for the trick, when you hand out the bill to one person, the other one will normally want to see the pen. That's one of the reasons this really well. Since I've already placed the pen on the table with the cap off, I now have two different spectators examining the two parts of the effect which proves to be impossible. It seems that the only time I'm asked to do it again, is if someone was absent at the time of the effect and walked up right after. Then its...."you gotta show them the pen through the bill" or something like that. Of course I don't. I just say something like, "Actually, watch this...this is crazy". It really doesn't matter what I do after a statement like that. Just make it good.

Paul