Salvage Yard: The Two Tenners
/Okey-dokey, here’s where I kick into shape the trick I dumped on yesterday, The Two Tenners by Alexander Marsh.
My goals were these:
To justify the marking of your bill. (If you’re suggesting it’s just part of a wager, why are you marking it or making note of its serial number? It’s nonsensical.)
To give some purpose to the opening “wager” effect.
To tie that wager part into the serial divination presentationally (not just arbitrarily).
To remove the Easy Answer that you just peeked at the serial number at some point.
Here’s what it would look like, with notes in bold.
“Do you have a dollar on you? I’m going to show you a game I used to play in elementary school.”
As the spectator is grabbing their bill you are reaching into your pocket to get one of your own.
At this point, ideally you would be some distance from your spectator.
Ask them to hold the bill with the portrait facing them, and to fold it in half, then in half again, and again. You demonstrate the same thing with your own bill.
“I’m going to put an X on mine, so we can tell them apart.” You pull out your sharpie to make the X on your bill and then put it away.
“This is a game we would play with our lunch money. For the last half of fifth grade we would play almost every day. Here’s how it works.”
You walk over to the spectator and take their bill from them (and do what needs to be done at that point).
“You’re going to take the bills behind your back, mix them around and bring them out in your fists like this.” You demonstrate holding both fists out in front of you.
Don’t actually put your hands behind your back during any of this. That’s too sketchy.
“I have to try and guess which hand has my bill in it. If I get it right 2 out of 3 times, I win both bills. If I don’t, you win both bills. In fact, I’ll give you better odds. If I don’t get all three guess correct you can keep both bills. Deal? I’ll be honest with you. I played this game a lot and I never lost my money.”
Then you go ahead and play the game. There is no method here. You just play it for real.
Either you’ll get them all right, or you’ll miss one or more. If you get them all correct, that’s a pretty strong trick in itself.
If you miss one or two, still play all three rounds, “Just to see how it would go.”
If you get all three rounds correct: “That’s somewhat impressive, but that’s the sort of thing I was doing back in fifth grade. Now I’ve honed my senses of perception to a much more impossible…,” And you go into the serial number divination.
If you don’t get all three rounds correct: “Well… shit! But to be fair, I didn’t say I never lost the game. I said I never lost my money. And that’s because when i did lose the game, I would offer to show them a cool trick if they gave me back my dollar. Are you willing to make that deal? My dollar for a trick?” They will agree and hand you back your dollar.
Those who have the trick will understand the power of this moment and what it psychologically reinforces.
“I can’t believe I lost all three rounds,” you say to yourself. “Well… actually… I sort of can believe it. You see, I wrote something on this bill besides the X before we started playing.”
You unfold the bill and it says, “I will lose all three rounds.”
This is accomplished with three outs. Three bills in your pocket:
“I will lose three rounds.”
”You will win two rounds, I’ll win one.”
”I will win two rounds, you will win one.”
After you play the game, you know which prediction to bring out and have finger palmed. When you take back your bill you will do a shuttle pass or any other type of switch, and then, after a few moments, reveal your prediction. I wouldn’t suspect there would be much heat on this switch (it’s your bill, after all). And showing this prediction written on the bill reinforces again the central lie that make the serial number divination work.
(You could have more bills in an index and give an exact prediction, i.e., “I will win the first round, lose the second, and win the third.” I don’t think it’s necessary because you’re really just setting them up for the final effect. I think it’s okay if this preliminary effect is just “okay.”)
“I’ll admit, that could have been luck. Are you willing to give me your dollar to see something truly impossible?”
The’ll likely agree (if not, offer to show it to them as an act of charity).
“Don’t give me your bill just yet. Keep it in your hand. When you were over there and you first took your bill out and folded it up, did you happen to notice the serial number?” They will say no. ““Okay, and the way the bill is folded it’s impossible for me to see the serial number now, correct?”
Here you are subtly but firmly making it clear that the serial number was hidden at the beginning of the effect. Before you were near them.
At this point you either divine the serial number directly, or ask them to look at it and “read their mind.”
Either way you have a routine that is pretty cohesive and builds nicely, and all the actions are pretty well justified.
It’s not really the sort of thing I do, so I probably won’t perform it myself, but I’ve run it by a few people who do things that are more in this style and they seem to really like it. So hopefully some of you will get something from it as well.
If I wanted to do a serial number divination here is what it would have to look like:
The spectator takes out any bill of any denomination from her wallet. With your head turned away she folds the bill up so the serial number is completely hidden away. You never touch the bill—nobody other than the spectator touches the bill—and yet you’re able to tell her what the serial number is.
That would seem impossible if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve seen my friend do that exact trick about half a dozen times. Unlike the routine described above, this version is designed for social, one-on-one performing and in those situations it’s a really strong effect. I’ll share it with you next month.