Does anybody know where I might obtain a gaff that would enable me to appear to tear a coin completely in half with my hands? I would like to use an American coin.

Apercu, Joe Rindfleisch has a trick like that. I forget the name at the moment. but the effect is you hand a spectator a half dollar and you take one for yourself, first you rip yours down the middle and stop short of ripping it completely in half. Then you take theirs back and rip it as well.
He's here on the Café give him a PM and I'm sure he can help you out.

Best,
Joe

Joe, thanks for the info. I just sent Joe Rindfleisch a PM.

http://www.murphysmagic.com/Product.aspx?id=38008

Coin-fusion.

Goes by a different name at Hocus Pocus.

Jay Sankey has a trick in his "Revolutionary coin magic 2.0" DVD called half a coin trick. He used to include it in his older tricks as a special bonus. You can find those on penguinmagic. But in revolutionary coin magic 2.0 he included his handling as well as a half of a coin. Might be of interest. The Joe Rindfleisch trick seems interesting.

The effect your talking about is called Mind over Matter. I sold it as a marketed effect back in the late 90s when I lectured. 1996 sounds about right. I later published the effect in my Extreme Coin DVD. In my version you tear two coins three quarters of the way down both coins and then bend the small part down (on a 45% angle) then hand both out for examination. The method is very simillar to most Copper Silver Transposition effects but the outcome is that you take two coins and tear both of them with your bare hands.

Joe Rindfleisch

Thanks for the replies. These effects all look pretty good from what I've been able to see.

Apocalypse magazine in vol.1 no. 8 that's aug.1978 you will find David Roth has torn and restored coin.

I just reviewed "CoinFusion":
http://magic.about.com/od/magicianwebpag......nfus.htm

This one is good.

-Wayne