I saw a magic trick this weekend and I think I’ve figured out how it is done. Am I right? Here’s the trick.
Magician had a lock (like a Master Lock) and a key that unlocked it. He also had 4 other keys that DIDN’T unlock it. He had someone from the audience come up and try the 4 other keys and verify that they didn’t work. But, the keys that DIDN’T work still turned in the lock. They just didn’t unlock it.
He then tried his working key to show that it still unlocked the lock. He then gave all 5 keys to the audience member and had him mix them together in a brandy snifter, then brought up 4 other audience members.
He had each audience member choose a key from the snifter from the first audience member. The first audience member took the remaining key.
Now with all 5 audience member sitting on stage, he told them, “at some point, one of you is going to feel like you have the key that unlocks the lock. When you do, stand up and unlock it.” Of course there was a lot more mumbo jumbo, but that was the gist. After a while with nobody moving, he encouraged the person who was fidgeting the most to unlock the lock… and … her key worked.
I’ve never seen a lock where the wrong key would even turn, and this got me suspicious. Here’s how I think the trick was done: The lock is a special (trick) lock. In one configuration, only 1 key will open it. By flipping something (or maybe rotating the lock body around the hasp clockwise or counter-clockwise) all 5 keys will open it. When the audience member first tried the 4 non-working keys, it was configured in the “only 1 key works” configuration. When he stood up to show that his key still worked, he put it in the “all keys work” configuration. His mumbo jumbo about someone feeling like their key was the one was just misdirection, attempting to get any one of the 5 to stand up and try their keys, since now, all of them would work.
What do you think? Is this how it was done? Have you ever heard of this trick? Any other ideas on how it was done?
Either that or somehow he pulled a switcheroo and all 5 keys put in the snifter worked.
Did he at either time (initial key attempts or final attempt) hold the lock while people tried their keys in it?
Another possibility is that the lock can be switched between an “unlockable” and a “not unlockable” position, and that all five keys will unlock it when it’s set to “unlockable.” That way he doesn’t have to worry about who has which key, though he does have to manipulate the switch before and after showing the “right” key.
Somehow I don’t get your description. With any lock I have, if the key turns in the lock, the cylinder rotates, the lock opens. Are you saying the cylinder rotates, but the lock does not open? And are the keys apparent duplicates or different?
Using the right key to unlock it might set it in the unlockable position where any key that turned in the lock would work. Since the fake keys turned the cylinder, the lock would probably rigged.
But it would be easier to put a jamming mechanism in the lock, so that the all the keys were good, and would turn in the lock, but it wouldn’t open. It might be as simple as a bit of glue. When he demonstrates the working key he just yanks on it hard enough to unjam it. Then who ever uses any one of the keys next will have no problem.
He could also switch working keys for the non-working ones. A confederate might be the person who fidgeted. He could have also switched locks when he demonstrated the working key, to a lock that all the keys could open.
jharvey963 - It doesn’t really matter. Was the show entertaining? That’s what magic is all about.
That is what raised my suspicions also. I’ve never seen a Master-Lock-like Lock in which non-working keys still turned. The cylinder DID turn but the lock didn’t open.
From audience distance, the keys looked like the same type of key, but I obviously couldn’t see whether the teeth were different.
I doubt this. If it was hanging from a rope, he would have had no way to hold it steady to get the key in, and no way to turn it, since there would be no resistance. Are you misremembering a detail here?
I used to know a guy who was a bit of an amateur magician. I went with him to a magic store in South Boston (don’t think it’s there anymore) and he bought a package with the instructions for that trick. It was created, or at least popularized and sold, by Max Maven. (It may have been marketed under his real name.) That may help track down some additional information. I don’t remember if the package looked big or heavy enough to contain a rigged lock.
I saw him do the trick at a party that evening. I had one of the keys. Just as I was thinking that the only way to do the trick would be if all the keys worked, someone else with one of the other keys went up and opened the lock. I was not in on the trick in any way.
He did handle the lock to show the working key, correct? That’s how your OP reads. He handles the lock to demonstrate the working key, then lets an audience member try the non working keys, then demonstrates the working key again, as though it would suddenly stop working for no reason. Could be that the master key can set the lock to unlocked mode when you turn it one way, and locked mode when turned another way.
Ok, yes. After the audience member tried the 4 nonworking keys, the magician then tried the working key and he did touch the lock. It was at this point that he could have changed the setting on the lock so that all 5 keys would now unlock it.
Yup. In any ordinary lock a key that can turn the cylinder is the right key to operate the lock. There is no additional thing that a key needs to do, apart from turn the cylinder, to operate a lock. If the “non-working” keys could turn the cylinder, they were the right keys to operate the lock. The only interesting question is why they didn’t open the lock when tried by the members of the audience.
So the only question is how the lock can be set to fail to open, despite the right key being used. At this point, it’s child’s play and as you say it’s just a matter of where the hidden switch lies. The simple answer might be that there is simply a disguised switch somewhere on the lock operated by hand. The more subtle possibility is that the switch is operated by some sort of sequence of insertions of keys, such that it opens at some points in the trick and not others.
However, I always think that the thing to look for is the step the magician doesn’t actually need to do, because it is usually a cover for something. You say the magician “then tried his working key to show that it still unlocked the lock.” Why did he need to do this? He didn’t. So that’s when he switched over the lock.
I just came upon this discussion. Never mind the fact that picking apart a performance piece of this sort is akin to dissecting a dancer’s body…
One of the primary elements of skeptical analysis is to be clear on what you witnessed, prior to bandying about theoretical solutions. jharvey963, your memory is off, hence your description is inaccurate.
