Hi guys,

After picking up Palms of Steel 2 and Kainoa's Coins on Edge book, I would love to be able to perform the material with dollar-size coins, however I still find that (after a month's practice) with Eisenhower dollars and Joe Mogar's Magical Morgans, they 'talk' too much in my hands, especially when doing stack work with multiple coins...

I cannot, at the moment, afford a set of soft Morgan dollars.

Also for edge grip and just general stack work, the Eisenhower dollars seem a little too thick in my hands when holding out 6 coins in fingerpalm / classic palm, for example.

I was wondering if anyone has an idea on how to acquire shiny, dollar size, soft thin coins...any help would be really, really appreciated!!

Thank you

I found these thin dollar-size coins (3/4 of the way down the page) with the search phrase "palming coins." I can't speak to the product quality, but I bet if you search on "dollar palming coins" you will find a few options.

http://www.nnmagic.com/magicitems/manipulationpage.htm

You can search coin shops or even eBay for junk morgans that are soft (quiet) for what you want to use them for. Check coin shops and ask for their scrap, junk, cull dollar coins to look through.

Nude, I have some of those Nielsen palming coins from a long time back, they are not soft and meant more for you to more comfortably palm them ( nice milling on them) and also stack more of them since they are quite thin.

Oh and meant to say earlier, Welcome to the Café...

-Mb

Tanay, what performance venue? If stage work or parlour where the specs aren't right on top of you I have some suggestions for you.

Jim

Hi Tanay, There are steel replica Morgans that are less expensive than the real thing. And you may find dollars are just too large for particular sleights you want to do. An ideal coin for me would be a 65cent piece!

I don't think those steel Morgans will be soft Atom. I have some of those as well and they aren't soft and will not help with the need for silence in the coins moving upon one another as is requested here.

^ No, Sir. Not soft. It may help with his budget, but the soft ones will have to be the more pricey silver coins---nature of the beast.

Tanay, you are looking for coins that look like this. They can be of varying quality but the soft, worn down nature helps to silence their movements when slid upon one another. It allows for more secretive movement of the coins. I use similar ones like this in my My Fly effect and Grandpa's Coins, works like Novocaine.

Click here to view attached image.

^^^^That's what my Morgans look like.
Tanay you really should go to your local coin shop and ask them if they have
worn down Morgan silver dollars
Coin shops don't know what the term "soft coins" mean as a magic term.

Like MB stated most coin shops will always have a box of odd culls set aside.
Morgans with dents, drop marks, gouges, and the soft worn out look you need. In the box I
was going through the coin shop let me cherry pick the ones I wanted for an extra $2.00.
The kid looked at me funny when I picked 5 soft worn Morgans and 2 unsoft Morgans.
There were all conditions of use in the box I looked through from shiny unworn coins to soft bent ones.

Tanay, you could also buy unworn Morgans as is and create soft coins as you want
with a little effort of hand sanding them to your desired finish.
You should be able to buy the Morgans for a few dollars over melt price,
depending upon the coin shops Greed Factor.

I bought some unmarked rep Morgans and made my own Stack after studying Rannie Raymundo doing Coins and Cylinder.
That's about as far as I would go with rep coins,
they just don't look or feel the same as real silver or even handle the same way.

Have Fun

Thanks for the replies guys

J-Mac, I'm only an amateur/beginner, so I perform mainly for friends or things like parties. Normally the audience (around 3 people --> 20 people) is seated, and I'm standing. It is close-up.

I looked around for soft Morgan dollars, and it seems that the soft ones are more expensive than regular Morgans (this is from custom coin manufacturers).

As Octopus said, is it possible to soften the coins artificially yourself, or is it better to purchase them already soft?

Also is it possible to shim the coin yourself? I'm not too sure what this involves!

These coins look like Eisenhowers but they're much thinner. They're not as soft as worn Morgans, but they're softer than real Ikes:

http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/S14042

You can also get them in Kennedy half dollars at the same site.

MaxfieldsMagic, thanks for the suggestion, I will look into it since I had not seen palming coins in the Eisenhower dollar design before

For people who REALLY, truly on a budget, nothing beats soft Morgans, because unlike fake slightly cheaper metal coins, Morgans are ACTUALLY WORTH their silver value, and you can ALWAYS recoup your investment reasonably easily.

You can get them for what silver is worth, if you are patient and shop around, and the best thing is, the more magician-friendly they are as far as talking goes, the cheaper you can buy them.

Nothing handles btter. Nothing, in my opinion, has a better aesthetic look. They are beautiful things. They are the best investment- by far. One can be had for the cost of driving to the movies, buying snacks and paying for a ticket. Why bother with anything else?

Once you watch that movie, your gas, snacks and theatre seat are history. That silver Morgan Dollar is still with you for performing tricks forever, and recoupable whenever you need the money.

I hear this "can't afford Morgans" argument all the time, and really wonder if the people saying this always cook from scratch at home, rather than buy out pizza and mountain dew. Do they pay cash for cars or take out loans? Do they own Vias cards and carry huge debt?

Were talking a purchase under 30$ that never is used up, and is always easily recouped. It is even possible a person could make money on it when silver goes up- unlike going to the movies, eating delivered pizza, using a credit card or- buying fake morgan dollars.

I don't get it.

yes, people here soften their coins all the time
there are several threads discussing this.
it's quite easy
several grades of wet/dry sandpaper
sanded in a figure 8 pattern
and some muscle work

Have you tried English copper pennies for practice?
They're really cheap so there will be no crying when you polish them a bit. The pennies won't devalue, they aren't worth much in the first place!

English Pennies Are half size!

Thanks for the info David, I had NO idea that these dollar coins were so big!
Ignore my suggestion then, by all means...

Any time! Thanks for thinking Anyway!