# AMAZING CHINESE MAGICIAN - how DOES he do these tricks? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 11, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-chinese-magician-how-does-he-do-these-tricks/637443 "2012-10-11T18:31:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-chinese-magician-how-does-he-do-these-tricks/637443/21 "2012-10-13T15:41:59Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Off-topic question: is that video meant to be inverted colors? Because I’ve been seeing such things often lately, and wondered if it’s some new fad or if something on my end is wonky… Probably your eyes. There should be a switch on the back of your head. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-chinese-magician-how-does-he-do-these-tricks/637443/22 "2012-10-14T03:48:47Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > You mean the first drop-the-coin-through-the-table trick? I would imagine it’s much simpler than you describe; **he’s got more than three coins.** It’s no double/magnetic coin thing, it’s just a sleight of hand trick; the audience member is holding Coins 1, 2 and 3. The magician has Coin 4 hidden; he takes Coin 1 from the audience member, palming it, and drops Coin 4 into the dish with his left hand, where he already has it palmed. That’s the simplest and most logical way to do the trick. That was my first thought. But if it is sleight of hand, he has an incredible style, as there does not appear to be any instance between when he puts his hand over the three coins to pick one up and when he opens his palm and displays nothing in his hand. He does no exchanges to the other hand, his sleeves are back, I cannot conceive what he actually did with the coin. Whereas, he does a weird motion when picking up the coin. That motion is not normal. But it exactly matches the motion one might make to flip, i.e. collapse, the double coin. Then he never has a coin in his top hand, and the extra coin below the table to drop. But I’m no expert, so there might be a way to do the trick with sleight of hand that doesn’t involve the double coin. I just think that if he has a double coin later, there’s no reason he couldn’t use it at the beginning as well. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Off-topic question: is that video meant to be inverted colors? Because I’ve been seeing such things often lately, and wondered if it’s some new fad or if something on my end is wonky… Video looks normal to me. Think it’s on your end. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-chinese-magician-how-does-he-do-these-tricks/637443/23 "2012-10-14T09:33:48Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Probably your eyes. There should be a switch on the back of your head. OK, the video’s normal now, but apparently the rest of the world got its red and blue channels switched… > [@Irishman](#): > > Video looks normal to me. Think it’s on your end. Yes, it’s apparently a known bug with Flash and Ubuntu when using hardware acceleration; pretty weird. ---
**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-chinese-magician-how-does-he-do-these-tricks/637443/24 "2012-10-16T19:28:57Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > You mean the first drop-the-coin-through-the-table trick? I would imagine it’s much simpler than you describe; **he’s got more than three coins.** It’s no double/magnetic coin thing, it’s just a sleight of hand trick; the audience member is holding Coins 1, 2 and 3. The magician has Coin 4 hidden; he takes Coin 1 from the audience member, palming it, and drops Coin 4 into the dish with his left hand, where he already has it palmed. That’s the simplest and most logical way to do the trick. Close. Helper is holding coins 1,2, and 3. 4th is palmed in his left hand already. Coin 3 is a [shell](http://www.magictricks.com/shim-shell-half.html), not a coin at all. It slips over coin 2 and stays in helper’s hand; it does not get palmed. He moves shell 3 over coin 2 -very nicely - while diverting attention to the bowl under the table. Coin 4 is dropped into the bowl from the left hand. As I said, there’s far less sleight of hand than trickery and props no matter what level magician you encounter. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-chinese-magician-how-does-he-do-these-tricks/637443/25 "2012-10-17T19:39:50Z")
That makes sense. Looking at that trick in slow mo, the two coins don’t have quite the same overlap as his double coin. And the camera work leaves plenty of time for him to overtly shuffle props as needed between tricks. “Let’s do a real close up of the bowl here and ignore that there’s a magician in the room.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-chinese-magician-how-does-he-do-these-tricks/637443.md?page=1)