Curious Facts

Everything below is in the book — each fact links straight to the page it comes from.

Downs published his own greatest secret because the pirates were getting it wrong. He wrote the book, he says, because people "who cannot by any stretch of imagination be called 'authorities' on the art" were selling pamphlets "purporting to contain a full exposure of his original Coin Creation" — booklets "absolutely misleading in every sense of the word, none of them even giving the elementary details with any amount of accuracy." Read it in the book →
The back palm was invented, its author insists, sixteen years earlier — by him. Downs states that every sleight in the Miser's Dream was "all, without exception, invented by himself some sixteen years ago," adding pointedly that he mentions it "for the information of those who may be in doubt as to the origin of the back palm." He also claims the act "has been more extensively imitated and counterfeited than any other known Magical Act." Read it in the book →
The magician walks on stage with thirty-five half-dollars distributed about his clothing. Before the act, "the performer places 20 half-dollars in his right-hand waistcoat pocket, and 15 in his right-hand trousers pocket." The twenty are palmed while a hat is being borrowed and slipped "like a flash of lightning under the bent-over side of the rim" of the hat itself. Read it in the book →
He loads fifteen coins from his pocket while telling the audience he never goes near his pockets. The patter is timed to the theft: hand into the pocket, "which forthwith palms the 15 coins previously placed there," followed by "No, ladies and gentlemen, if I were to place my hands in my pockets you would all see me. Please, see that my hands do not approach the body." Read it in the book →
Houdini, in Dresden, shed ninety pounds of prison irons in under eight seconds. The book's survey of rival performers reports that Houdini "was locked securely by the police authorities with over ninety pounds of prison irons, and succeeded in releasing himself from all the locks in less than eight seconds, returning all of the irons, etc., unlocked." A jealous German apparatus dealer's attempted exposure in Berlin, Downs notes with satisfaction, was "a failure." Read it in the book →
Six coins at once, invisible on the back of one hand. "Fig. 4 shows the author's hand with six coins back-palmed" — the vanish and reappearance being simply the same movement reversed, executed "with lightning-like rapidity" and covered by a feint as if throwing the coin away. Downs performed his "Continuous Front and Back Hand Palm" at the Palace Theater, London, for six consecutive months in 1899. Read it in the book →
The "flying coins" flew on a thread designed to snap at the end of the flight. Coins, glass bottom and table top were all drilled, a knotted thread run through the lot to a concealed assistant: "A vigorous pull upon the thread will cause the pile of coins to fly visibly into the glass, and the same pull will break the thread, leaving them in a condition to be readily poured from the tumbler." Read it in the book →
Balancing three coins on a fingertip required a needle hidden inside the finger. In "The Equilibrium of Silver," the borrowed coins are swapped for duplicates drilled clean through, and "two minute flesh-colored rubber bands encircling the finger" support "a very fine flesh-colored tube through which the needle D runs," the needle being pushed up and down by the thumb. Read it in the book →
An entire chapter catalogues the gadgets invented to fake Downs's own hands. Chapter V sets out "to describe all the latest devices invented to imitate the author's methods of palming with coins" — chief among them a coin with a hinged wire loop, "large enough to easily encircle the middle finger," that lies flat and invisible. With it, Downs concedes, "the back palm can then be executed in a few minutes." Read it in the book →
A rival's trick coin was drilled through and wired with "tiny flesh-colored clips". Roterberg's new mechanical coin was "a single one with a hole drilled clear through it," carrying a wire with minute flesh-coloured clips at each end. Downs calls it "the best adaptation of the 'Spider' idea" he knows, and advises buying two or three different fakes, "as he can then use the one that suits him best." Read it in the book →
Naming the date on a borrowed coin: know the date of your own coin first. A duplicate whose date you already know is palmed and swapped for the borrowed coin as it is thrown on the table: "You now state the date on the duplicate, which, upon being examined, is found to be correct." The book adds that this "is rarely, if ever, detected, and produces a sensation." Read it in the book →
Imitators recited his patter word for word — so he retired the trick and left it to the "Coin Kings" and "Queens". Almost every imitator of the Miser's Dream that Downs had witnessed "used his original patter, word for word." Of the Crystal Coin Ladder, credited to Robert Heller, he writes that "owing to its exhibition by many imitators, he has discarded it and leaves it to the other" performers styling themselves Coin Kings and Queens. Read it in the book →
Two coins that are really one: riveted dummies that spread apart on demand. To show two coins in the left hand after eight have already passed into a tumbler, the performer finger-palms "two dummy coins pivoted together, which admits of their being spread apart to look like two coins" — and their being riveted lets them be reverse-palmed as one. Read it in the book →
A photograph of one hand palming coins three different ways at once. "Fig. 33 represents a photo of the author's hand palming coins in three different styles: ordinary, thumb and finger-palm" — needed only rarely, but two at once are useful for secretly exchanging borrowed coins for substitutes. Read it in the book →
Horace Goldin's next innovation was to stop speaking altogether. Downs praises Goldin's "funny dialect" and "bag of funny tricks," then appends a footnote: "Since this book has been written Mr. Goldin has made another innovation in his act by omitting all talking." Read it in the book →
Six half-dollars from bare hands — "no coin holders, spiders, or false palms used". The performer turns up his sleeves and "shows both hands perfectly empty back and front, fingers wide apart," brings them together for a moment without approaching his body, and produces six half-dollars. Read it in the book →