I just purchased "Captain and Coke 2.0," and am curious how you keep track of your gaffed coins? I've had a number of gaffed coins over the years, and have never had much luck in hanging on to them, probably because I mistake them for real coins. I don't really like "packets" (for either coins or cards) as that screams out gaff for me. But the last thing I want to do is to inadvertanly drop my new trick down a vending machine to purchase a $40.00 Coke. Thanks for any insight you can lend.

Packets that stay in your pocket and retrieve the coins by sliding them out of the packets.

Also cellphone holsters make great prop carriers. For coins, insert foam and cut slits for coins.

Designated pockets.

http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/1422 This might be of interest to you.

Thanks for all the great ideas. I especially like the Joshua Jay Pro Carrier and will likely pick up one or two on my next Penguin order. Twenty bucks for a custom-purposed leather wallet sounds like a pretty good deal.

I keep small items for magic in envelopes with the names of the effects on the outside of the envelopes, or whatever I call them if they happen to not really have a name. I think the envelopes are for letters or something, they're white, and about as wide as a birthday card or something.

I keep things like cards for packet tricks in them, cards for card tricks that only use a few cards in them, gaffed coins along with anything else that might be needed for gaffed coin tricks such as Scotch and Soda, and so on.

If I'm going to perform any of those tricks I simply take out what I need and put it in my pocket, set up in a way that I'm ready to reach in and get it out to perform.

As a magician, I have NEVER carried loose change on me since I was at least 15 years old.

Why would a magician waste pocket space when you intend to or might possibly perform? Why would you make it a habit to carry loose coins when you also place valuable gaffed coins in your pockets?

If for some odd reason you're ending up purchasing things giving you change to carry around when you have your gaffed coins on you to perform, start carrying your gaffed coins in the other pocket, or in the tiny change pocket most pants have. Or vice-versa, start putting your loose change in a different pocket or best in the tiny change pocket specifically made for that on pants.


Its really not that much of a challenge to keep this stuff organized. Get a container and/or case of some sort, organize the stuff with dividers and foam padding or something, put small things in labelled envelopes, stack your DVDs and books neatly somewhere, keep your pockets habitually empty other than necessary items like your wallet, cell phone, and car keys, and make it a habit that magic items get stored where they belong when they are not being used for practice or performance.

Simple.


Or even better, just reduce your magic down to only using cards, sponge balls, bills, and quarters lol.




One final thing I just thought about:

If you also mean you can't keep your gaffed coins separate while performing, as in, you're carrying say a folding quarter, a Scotch and Soda, a shell half, AND a cigarette through quarter...

You are carrying 3 too many gaffed coin tricks because a magician should never have more than one gaffed coin trick in a performance in my opinion, definitely never more than two.

Why carry loose change? Some of us perform slight of hand magic with ungimmicked coins. I produce my gimmicked coins out of a small assortment of real coins, aiding the illusion that they're genuine.

Reducing his magic to (more controllable items)?? Sounds quite condescending.

Limiting the number of gaffed coin tricks in any given performance? If there were any good reason to perform 15 or 25 gaffed coin tricks in an act, who among us is qualified to tell the performer he's overdoing it? I prefer to save my criticism for bad quality of peformance, rather than quantity of props used.