Is the TUC a trick or a tool? I feel that it is closer to a tool than a trick. It's capable of so much more than just one single application.

Good point actually Bill.

As for being capable of so many applications - jeez you aren't wrong there fella! It truly makes so many other coin gaffs completely redundant.

I've bought 2 currencies in TUC's - and together with the excellent download 'TUC Appreciation', I haven't put them down for weeks.

I have the TUC in Kennedy half and in Morgan dollar. I don't really do much with gaffed coins, but when I find a really good one, I like to have an example, and I like to play around with it. Ken Muller (Funsway) basically obsessed over that coin set for about a year or so!

Funsway made a book for magicians using the TUC and the number of handlings and effects in there is awesome (I had sent a few routines and Ken used only one).
The TUC is really an outstanding gaff and Mr Tango will never be thanked enough for this breakthrough in coin magic.

Bill What Year was the ITR published in the Linking Ring?

I don't have that issue here now. I put all of my Linking Rings from before 2000 in storage and now use the Ask Alexander database. It was sometime in the 1950's or early 1960's. It did not look at all like any of the ITR's you see now.

Bear in mind that James George did invent the ITR that he sells and that has been knocked off by so many people. However, it wasn't the first one. It may have been the first one to be marketed commercially, though. And let me add that James was completely unaware that anyone had EVER made anything like this before.

Here's the thread where I mention the actual issue of the Linking Ring. BTW, I was off by six years. It was in a Canadian Parade, and was invented by William Ewington.

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......orum=133

You will need to read all the way through the thread to get the information.

So much good stuff that become available, but one of my favorites is Deep Astonishment.

The Doctor

An interesting thread. Thanks for sharing all of your thoughts and comments but I'm still not sure as to which trick is the best one released this decade. I can say that I do like Prohibition by Charlie Justice because I have and use it from time to time.

I also think extreme burn is one of the best tricks of the decade. and the tuc trick or tool has changed shell magic for ever.i still love doing magic with a shell. but there are so many applications that can be done better and cleaner with the tuc coin.
todd

As far as the trick I enjoy most doing? NUTTY SURPRISE

In my experience, VERY few effects are new....the "new" ones often tend to be "re-packaged", "re-marketed", or "improvements" either in material or technology to tricks or effects that have already been out there for a while.

In some cases, those "improvements" tend to be pretty darned spectacular.

A case in point is Pete Biro's and Joe Porper's AmazeRing. NOT a new trick, but rather, a SPECTACULAR improvement!

Having said that, I think that, in all due respect to all present and the tricks and effects that they market, Losander took an old, old trick to a whole NEW level when he made his version of The Floating Table widely available to magicians.

So, Losander's Floating Table gets my vote as The Trick of The Decade....and I don't even have one!

(But I sure WANT one!)

Notion of Motion by Angelo Carbone