I want to order a shell and a C/S gaff but I’m having a hard time deciding between the half dollar and dollar size coins. I have been using halves without any gaff and would like to hear some opinions for the use of different size coins.

For example:

I can muscle pass the dollar higher than the half.
I like the look of the bigger coin…easier to see, bigger impact, etc.

I can do the coin fold with a dollar bill to vanish a half, but not a dollar coin.
Can classic palm more halves at a time.

Besides hand size, (I can work with both) what are the pros and cons of each size coin?
And do you give up anything by going from the half to the dollar size?

Dollar sized gaffs will cost you a pretty penny. You will most likely have to order them from Todd Lassen and copper/silver coins are nearly out of the question.

The sheer cost difference may answer your question for you.

Order the Hopping Half coin set it give you the gaffs you want at half the cost, plus you have a really great coin trick also.

There is no common money that is the same size as the Silver Dollars. So you will have to get extra supply of coins that match the Copper side of the coin. This could be very expensive in the long run. You should buy as many as 7 extra coins, because in the future you may want to do a coins across or thru the table that use six coins.

What is your spending budget?

As Bill noted, Dollar sized coins are tough to find.

Using the same coins for each trick is not a requirement. Even David Roth changes coins between his major routines. That he uses half dollars for his routines is his choice. A great coin act can use completely separate sets of coins for each routine. For practical reasons I suggest that approach.

Written while looking at my well worn half crowns and thinking about using OLD Chinese coins for an assembly routine.

I use half dollars most of the time, but like using silver dollars when I can because their size is easier to see.

Todd Lassen is now making dollar size C/S coins and many other gaffs in dollar size.

Curtis Kam uses silver dollars but has to use half dollars when interacting with layman (passing four coins off as three when they are placed in a laymen's hand)



Joe

If you don't mind a holed coin. And the price tag is $250. There are only 3 sets apparently.

Contact Dean Dill for reasonably priced Dollar Coin gaffs....

As wmhegbli said buy Hopping Halves for C/S effect. Very simple to do and useful because of the gaffs. Any way, I suggest you to buy half size gaffs because, in close up coin magic, you use the halves for every trick and you can combine where you want gaffed and ungaffed coins.

Decker:
Cost is always a consideration…Just trying to make an educated purchase.

Wmhegbli:
Very good point about having the correct dollar coins down the road. It would be critical to have a few spares! As far as budget goes…It’s never big enough is it?

Jonathan:
I was imagining in my mind linking different routines with the same coins and gaffs to avoid the question “why did you change the coins”. What motivation do you use to transition from one set of coins to another? Do you put one set away and do other effects before coming back to the second set?

Mystre71:
Involving specs is a good point also.

Some other thoughts:
What about different flourishes and silk use?

Thanks for all the input!

Flourishes show your skill up front and can establish in an instant that you are skilled and not a "trickster". But I have worked on the coin roll or spread for years and cannot get it 100% for me.

For a silk I only know of Ammar's coins in silk routine.

Bill

Doing a few coin tricks as a sort of 'adventures of the coins' has yet to work for me. In principle it could work much like a stage play where the sets change and the characters continue.

Instead I went for separate stories and ideas. Different props for different routines.

Different strokes for different folks.

In my professional work I hardly perform more than one coin routine for a group.

I have both Morgans and Libertys and the moment I pick a set determines what I can and will do with it.
At the moment I can almost do the same things with both sets, so the only difference is the use of a certain gaff.

My first choice at the moment is the Morgan for visibility and sound. However classic palming from a group is difficult (for instance Dave Williamson's chink-a-chink), so if a routine requires that, I go for the smaller ones.

I also have a gorgeous CSB set from Todd that uses a Canadian dollar. But this is obviously (to the spectators) an unusual set "found in a secret compartment of an antique wooden cabinet I bought at an auction."

While dollar coins are far more visible I believe that as time goes by they are far less recognizeable.
People don't use the silver dollars anymore. Even now if you go into a bank and ask if they have any half dollars - most will look at you blankly.

The other consideration is that the US mint seems adamant about producing a quarter sized dollar. I call your attention to the defunct Susan B. Anthony and the more recent "gold" coin.

Then again I have seen a cone and coin effect using an Eisenhower Dollar and a "Chinese" coin and it looks great.

In the end I think I would get a dollar shell and hold on to it - it is elegant, has some real historical and visual interest for a spectator, and you never know when they will discontinue the old dollar in favor of a different design or size. It's risky these days borrowing a quarter as soon we will have 50 types we will have to switch it for.

Not if you use the head side, which is alike on all of the state quarters.

What effects can be done with halves but are much more difficult with dollars? Such as matrix effects and as
Mystre71 mentioned, in the Specs hands?

From the other direction...Which effects are much stronger with dollars?

MoonBeam

Have a look at David Roth's Stonehenge Coin Assembly. Quite impressive. No need to do the rock at the end.

As to 'in the hands' stuff. I don't know. I suspect a copper silver routine might be suspect since the coins are so unusual. However the use of a twenty dollar gold coin instead of a dollar might make the thing work.

I would look at the half dollar size, strictly from a cost and availability standpoint. The silver dollars are nice, but it's just very difficult to obtain the copper coins. I'm currently working on a good source for them now, if I have any luck I'll be sure to let you all know.

Why are folks looking for such LARGE copper coins? There are bronze ones, gold ones...

More generally, there were FEW such coins used as money. Commemorative coins and medals are available. "Large coin" is almost an oxymoron.

Very good points Jon...

Aside from the uniqueness to the specs, cost and availability issues, what are some opinions for the pros and con's of each size?

MoonBeam

Pro: big, heavy -> more visible and make louder noise
con: big, heavy -> yes, same can be problematic

Not sure what you want to know that can't be learned from a few months work with larger coins.