A few years ago I went to Florida with my wife. When we arrived at the gate, the officer had to check our hand bags before we could climb aboard the plane. I am a canadian and they were US officers. The "fun" begin when they saw my US coin (folding, flipper, shell, jumbo 3", 5" and 7") my chinese coins, copper penny and strangely no canadian coins except in my pockets. I had to explain that I was a magician. They asked me for a rabbit, laughing at me by the way! I've had to explain what was for all these strange things they could see in front of them.
Later my wife ask me why I din't place my coins simply in our lugage. I told her that I could stand to loose a lugage but not any of my coins. So I'd rather have them with me!

Something like that ever happen to you???

No it personally hasn't happened to me but I have heard it is pretty awkward having extreme burn with you (people who own it will know what I mean).

Ian

Few months ago at airport in California. The security guy asked me if I was a coin collector? I said yea something like that and kept moving. No problem at all.

You were lucky Rizzo! Or maybe I was badlucked enough to meet the "funny-security-gard" of the group.
You know the one on whom you can count to be the life of the party. But this time the jokes were on me. Very disturbing (but today I can see how in fact it was funny. I can even imagine this guy telling this story to his friends: "I remember this french canadian blablabla...")

Doesn't have to be awkward at all.

*beep beep*

"Sir, what's in your pocket?"

"Oh, just a couple of one dollar bills, oh I mean a couple of hundred dollar bills."

"Carry on sir."

LOL

Haha Doug I am sure that would never arouse suspicion. I once got in a bit of trouble entering Austrillia when I said I had no food and forgot about half a pack of gum in my pocket, to say the least I don't think they were impressed.

Ian

Once had my bag "investigated" by the security officials when entering Saudi Arabia - where "magic" is frowned upon (not hand luggage). Had to have a Ministry official (my client) rescue my beloved coins - the DVD (A Sol Stone - Casual Close up) was confiscated along my 2” Swiss army knife. The airline paid full compensation plus a replacement bag (although the bag wasn’t damaged).

Few months later – they paid me AGAIN – now THAT’s Magic.

Whereas I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time, Steve Brooks told a story the other night about airport security and a DLite (Body part with a wire) that cracked me up! Maybe he'll tell it sometime!

Think about Dave Neighbor's everyday carry around gaffs and metal detectors!

MMc

"No no no! I just wanted to change these into a few hundreds Officer!"

"Book him on counterfeiting charges as well Barney. You're gonna be doing hard time in federal pound me in the .. prison!"

"Darn you Richard Sanders."

Many years ago I had 2 Miami security ladies completely convinced that my 3" chromed Half Dollar was actually Hawaiian money. "They have HUGE Coke machines in Hawaii."

My briefcase always gets extra scrutiny during the Xray. They almost always call a superviser over and point at the pouches of coins. Occasionally they open it up and look remarkably disappointed that the strange thing they saw was "Oh, it's just some coins"

It slows me down a bit but at least I get some enjoyment out of their puzzlement.

I agree with taiga, I want my expensive coins with me. I can lose my clothes.

John

If I had expensive coins, I'd definitely agree. Right now, I have some lousy 2001 Kennedys and a couple english pennies. The only time I ever got stopped an airport was when they were doing their "random" security check and they went through all of our luggage. That sucked.

I once got stopped after my carry-on went thru the xray machine. They wanted to know what the little bars of metal were in my bag. I had to tell them it was a magic effect and then they wanted to see it. So I had to bend a penny before I could go to my gate. (I think I showed them some other effects too)

Yea I put all my coins in my carry on bag! Most of the time thay look trou the bag
And some times take the smaller bags out and run them agen! I allways tell them that I am a magicion And I do a lot of coin magic! When I went to japan to Lecture thay did not even look at my bag! Now I did have one time that thay took allmost every coin purse I had out opened it and looked trou it! And I had a lot of those vary small min. purses That you could maybe get 3 or 4 halfs in! I am sure what thay thought I could hide in those! It took me 30-40 mins to get trou!

Once I've carried the double folding coinin my pocket, and I was thinking not to take it out so I walked pass the gate, and the next thing is beep..., and I took out the coin without knowing the elastic band was broken. And they looked confused with the coin, and an idea suddenly came to my mind thanks to Richard Sanders. I just told them that I dropped the coin and it was broken, and somehow those people actually buy my story lol, and the next thing is that, beep again. I've just realized that what caused the beep is not the coin, it's my belt.....

I got into a similar situation where Security had to examine my laptop case in depth because they saw a cluster of metal they couldn't identify in my bag. They opened it up and saw all my coins and made pulled it out, but looked right by the 7 oz. bottle of cologne, and the tin holding 4 small pads of flash paper, and another glass container containing my insulin, but they really wanted to make sure I didn't take anything questionable on the plane......

That's funny stuff!

I travel extensively so I've had a few interesting encounters with TSA. I put all my props in my computer bag and it seldom gets hand inspected. I put my smaller gaff coins along with my pocket change and they never draw any attention.

One time I saw 3 TSA agents looking at my jumbo coin, scratching their head looking like confused monkeys. They asked me what it was for, I told them it was my lucky coin and I never fly without it. They reluctantly let me keep it. But I was a little worried there for a minute.

The most embarassing was when I had a bag inspection and they asked me a about a thumb tip... the TSA agent acted like he was the masked magician exposing my secret to everyone within earshot - he ****ed me off.

And then there was TSA Sam, who politely inpsected my bags, asking me what this stuff was for... he emails me about once a year for a pass to the magic castle. He and his wife love magic.