I used to think the cup through cup move was a waste of time. I started performing on the streets, and I have found it to be very strong indeed. I won't ever leave it out again.

Ronnie

You can probably hammer it out using a long piece of wood, a hammer, and another piece of wood (ply) as an anvil/dolly. Another type of anvil could be a big lump of metal (eg vice) covered with padding such as a few layers of cloth. You need something firm but slightly yeilding locally so as not to scracth the metal.

I've had to deal with this problem before. The best people to remove dents from cups are guys who work on musical instruments, specifically brass instruments. They have to deal with this kind of thing all the time. They have specialized tools just for this purpose.

If you go after copper with a long piece of wood, a hammer and another piece of wood as a dolly, you will very likely end up with a rather lumpy looking cup. To do this right, you need what is called a "chasing hammer," which is a very delicate type of hammer. And you need the proper shape of dolly or anvil. You also need something to heat the metal to take the stress off of it. Denting and chasing "work hardens" metal. You have seen this when you bend a piece of metal to the point of fatiguing. The torch is used to anneal the metal and relieve the stresses.

Brass instrument repairment have to deal with this all the time. They get instruments that kids have played in high school. They drop them, they close their cases on them with things like pencils, pens, etc. on top of them, and they make horrible messes of the instruments. A good brass instrument repairman can take the dents out and you will probably never notice they were there.

I had a set of Rings and Things Monti cups, copper, that got squashed in the mail. The top cup of the stack was fine, but the bottom cup was definitely oval in shape. The one in the middle split the difference. I took them to a local musical instrument repairmen who is a friend of mine. In less than 15 minutes he had the two bent cups looking exactly like the other one.

So, before you mess the cups up worse, take them over to a good horn man, and let him do the job for you.

All very true. You'll probably get a much better result by going to a specialist but then I've used the above techniques with great success on all manner of metal articles such as copper kettles, car bodies etc etc. It also depends on the size and position of the dent. If you're not sure of what you're doing, then the instrument repair guy is a very good tip.

Apologies for taking the thread off topic from cup penetrations ...

No, no apology necessary. Actually, your point is well taken. And if you have the skills necessary to do the work, go for it.

The interesting part about taking these things to an instrument repairman is that usually they don't know what to charge, and since it is such an unusual request, sometimes they will do it for little or nothing.

Or you can teach them the 21 card trick in exchange for the work.

This is marginally off-topic, but it's as good a place to tell the story here.

My friend John Ice, who has been a magician in Houston and Chicago for years and years, tells this story about how to get your Okito coin box polished free of charge.

He said that jeweler's shops have ways of polishing metal that most of us do not have access to -- special tools and compounds -- so he would go into a jewelry shop and show them the box. He would say, "We were just going through my grandmother's effects, and I found this. I think she kept her heart pills in it. I'm on my way to the airport, but I thought maybe you could polish this up for me a bit, so I could put it in with her other things that I have kept as souvenirs."

There are certain words like "bunny, apple pie, and grandmother" that John calls "AHHH words." These are words that give people warm, fuzzy feelings way down deep where it counts. So the jeweler would look at the box and he would say, "Let me see what we can do.... Hey, Joe! Can you polish this thing up for this fellow real quick? He's on the way to the airport. It belonged to his grandmother. She just had a heart attack and passed away."

Then in a few minutes he would hand it back, all shiny and new looking -- "How much do I owe you?"

"No charge."

You will note that he never said his grandmother had passed away. He just implied it. It's a masterful story, though, isn't it!

Yes, if you read it carefully, you see that he truly did not lie. (At least in a technical sense!) He really didn't even go so far as "guilding the lilly", he just implied and let the listeners mind fill in the rest. Clever. Very clever, indeed. All magicians could learn a valuable leson in psychological misdirection from this man!

Besides, when you said "Grandmother, I too felt those "warm fuzzies", for I loved mine very much.

What are some other of those words that we put to good use, Bill?

Baby, puppy, kitten, bunny, mother, dad -- those are all "warm fuzzy" words.

kid from hell, pit bull, wildcat, alligator -- are not "warm fuzzy" words.

Ok. But "grandmother" still does the most for me

Alligator is a warm fuzzy word to me, now puppy that word makes me grumpy: "he did what to my magic bag".

Back to the cup through cup move... I just found an interesting thing. The book, "Magician's Own Book", published in 1857, has this move described in their entry entitled, THE THREE CUPS". The routine described is very basic (balls vanish and reappear under the cups; balls vanish and collect progressively under one cup). There are no final loads used, but the denoument is the cup through cup move, which is well-described.

I don't have access to "Hocus Pocus Jr.", or "Discovery of Witchcraft", but I'd be curious how far back this move's roots can be traced.

Discovery of Witchcraft doesn't have a reference to the move. I haven't dug into Hocus Pocus Jr. other than Bill's treatment of the original book. Perhaps he can shed some more light on that one.

Chris

I haven't tried to track the move down. I am reasonably sure it isn't in Discoverie of Witchcraft, because the cups and balls routine in there is very sketchy.

The Magicians Own Book, The Secret Out, and a couple of other books by Cremer are probably the earliest source material for this move.

You might want to check out Alex Elmsley's routine. He does the move with a cup that's loaded with a lot more than four tiny balls!!!!

Carney's routine uses the cup through cup move with two of the cups loaded. He catches them as they "fall through." If I could catch them without tensing up, I'd consider doing this as it definitely implies (and seemingly proves) the cups are empty and allows for the magical appearance of the balls - but that's another topic.