Here is something to think about. Mind you, I'm just throwing this out there to get a feel for how most guys feel about this, especially those who's repertoire is heavily dependent upon effects using paper currency.


Now first, from the get go, here, please understand that this is an entirely hypothetical situation, ok? I'm not going to run around yelling that the sky is falling, but I want to be clear that this is just a "what if" scenario, ok?

OK. I've heard talk among various circles and in my reading, concerning a coming "cashless" society; a society where all paper money (and coinage, for the coin guys) would be done away with. A "new system" would replace our current cash system, and cash would go the way of the proverbial dinosaur.


My question is: How would you react, how would you feel, what would you DO, if suddenly, overnight your act was obliterated? Think of all the years, the blood sweat and tears you've invested in mastering this branch of magic, then suddenly you could no longer say to someone "Can I borrow a dollar bill?"

I've got to say, for me personally it would STING like a sharp slap in the face. Ouch! Years of my life invested in learning and practicing bill effects and untold  sums of (ahem. CASH) money invested over the years suddenly down the crapper. My torn and restored bill gone. All my favorite bill changes? History. My pen through bill? Irrelevent.

I'd have to say it sucks. (Or at least it WOULD if it ever happened.

But you may disagree. You may be the kind who easily adapts and says "Not a problem. I'll just do cards from now on."

I don't know. Everyone's different. I'm just trying to get a feel for how different guys would react if this ever occured in America. (Or other countries, for that matter.

Again, the sky is not falling. I'm just speaking hypothetically in this post.

Fortunately I am older than dirt, so your scenario won't have a chance to affect me.

That said, the banks sure are pushing toward something very much like what you posted. Remember the recent commercials that showed people streaming quickly through checkout lines at various stores using debit cards, and when someone wants to pay with cash it slows everything down to a crawl and everyone looks very annoyed with the stupid, crusty old cash user? Pitiful.

Jim

What to do during a major weather crisis, flood, etc. and power goes out for hours, days or weeks. Your banks computer system is down, etc. How will you buy gas, food, etc. I'm not a 'happy camper' about this, though I do believe it will happen in the not-so-distant future.

It wont affect me at all, I have been without cash for years

It could happen, but I don't think it will be in my lifetime.

I often have a hard time finding someone with a dollar bill to do a bill change.

You could still do tricks with cash, one would just have to rewrite their scripts, easy enough.

Al, you mean you're finding more and more people carrying plastic and shunning paper currency in their wallet?

We have almost become a society without cigarettes and cigars, once the main focus of almost every magician's repertoire. Even if the cigars and cigarettes aren't gone and forgotten, it is forbidden to have them in many venues where magicians perform. What did we do? We adapted. That's what humans always do in response to changing environments- or they become extinct if they cannot adapt. Today, I use the old cigarette and cigar sleights for crayons, pens and pencils, and other items. The sleights are not lost, just the former objects. You can use bill sleights with paper receipts, pieces of cut up construction paper, parking tickets, etc. You don't like it? Either go extinct, or find a substitute.

The old saying, "don't put all your eggs in one basket" applies to the magic world as well as the real world... even when all the eggs become powdered.

Yeah. They say even newspapers are on the way out. So much for the Anderson Newspaper tear.

Heck. So much for Gene's whole act. ( If he's still performing)

On the other hand, I'm working on a torn and restored i-Pad...

Maybe you could do like the old classic broken and restored watch. (If you are familiar with it)

So far it's more like a sawing in half, then in quarters using a battery powered saw, all of which will probably be obsolete before I can get the trick to market.

It will easily be another 50yrs before newspapers and cash are gone.
There's nothing to worry about in the remainder of your short life.

It's kind of like doing a trick with an old silver dollar, english penny, 2 dollar bill...etc...it doesn't have to be "used" to be performed with - just swapped out for a normal one and talked about presentationally as some old artifact.

Magicians have adapted in the past. We'll continue to adapt. If you have enough knowledge and experience, you will have no trouble adapting. I've already considered what I would do without cash and I'm prepared to make make changes. Luckily, there would be plenty of time to switch, after we knew the change was coming.

Wow - now I'm really worried.

And just what are we going to do when sponge balls are no longer carried around by everyone on a daily basis?

.......I hope the 50,000+ members help it not happen by carrying and using cash every day. Cashless is a very bad idea; don't let them do it. I think the world will at some point go back to precious metals after a big fiat currency crash.

One thing I do is carry one of those bill-testing pens around and if the cashier tests my bill, I test all of the ones in the change - no matter how small.

"It wont affect me at all, I have been without cash for years "
That's great, you really made me laugh with that.





I think the issue goes beyond finding another piece of paper to do a switch, T&R, Penetration.. with. Money is so personal and special to people. Very often after I do a bill change, people ask if that is real money. That question always seems a little odd to me (why would it matter, it CHANGED!); but I think their question reflects their belief that this could not be done with real money. Similar to what I've heard said about magic for young children. They may not be impressed if you can make a coin appear from an empty box, but if you make it appear from their ear, they are VERY impressed. Why, because they know their ear doesn't normally work that way. So substitute their "ear" for their "dollar".

So, I think we would loose not the effect, but the impact.

Yet, it is my belief, that by the time we can not buy things except via some identification system (to credit our account electronically), we will have much bigger things to be concerned about.

John