I was wondering if anyone has heard of this trick? Can you give me any reviews on it? Can you explain what it takes to accomplish and maybe how it works? I know you can't tell me how it works here, but you can PM me. Thank you....

Hi there!

This is an effect, published by Kenton Knepper in his book "An Enchanted evening".
It is different, technically ( but not presentational wise)easy and it kills.

GET IT!!!

This "Bent Cent" sounds suspiciously like my "Gellerism Plus", published in 1973 in the late Bascom Jones' magazine MAGICK. It appears to be the method David Blaine used in the Haitian jungle on one of his specials. A coin bends in a spectator's hand. I'm not at all surprised that it's been reinvented. It probably will be again, over the years. I've never stopped using it; I get quite a reaction.

I don't think it is quite the same thing as what you published. The coin is not bent in the usual sense. It is pressed into a concave shape. Not into a bent to the side shape. It looks really earie to see.

Blurr

I have it, I use it, and I recommend it. It's a dramatic bending illusion, and the result makes a particularly great giveaway for kids -- what other souvenir can you imagine giving an audience member that literally costs a penny?

Paradox--

Blurr is quite right. The concept is certainly similar, but not exactly the same. I have seen bent cent (I don't own it) and it is very well made. However, I have not seen the instructions, so I can't speak to whether it is properly credited.

So I take it that its more then having a bent penny palmed and doing a switch?

I recently read "An Enchanted Evening" and will be adopting this bit into my repetoire, however I am still a little vague on the handling based on the textual description, can someone PM to answer a few questions?

Thanks,

Brian

Can the bent cent be signed by the spectators?
Can a borrowed coin be bent and signed? So basically..are there switches involved? Is bent cent a pre-show device?

No, well's there's probably a way, but not recommended.

I have recently been told of a Magician bending a signed penny. They said it bent while on a table with no one touching it. The penny was then given back to the spectator. I did not see it and I know spectators usually hype up the effect. Does this sound like "bent cent"?

I use "Bent Cent" all the time, and just looked up "Gellerism Plus" in Compleat Magick, Vol. 1. "Bent Cent" is nothing at all like the latter effect, in handling or visible appearance, except in that the end result is that a penny is bent (even how it looks after it's bent is different). There are no switches involved in Koenig's effect, and the bending is VERY visual. Nielsen's effect uses a switch and is not particularly visual at all.

The effect Kevin heard a description of was not "Bent Cent", and likely did not in fact happen as it was described; it's probably more a case of a a wonderfully misremembered performance (and aren't those the best kind? ;o)

The signed coin can be done using Yuval Keren's horribly impractical (and obscenely priced) "Coin Bending Pen", but I ask why in the world you would need the coin signed (something I riff on for a short period in one of the essays in my book Ramblings & Revelations).

If you pick up the borrowed coin and, with no funny moves, immediately bend it, who cares if it's signed? All it does is complicate the procedure and slow the performance down; nothing's as dull as sitting there watching a participant sign a coin to overprove the lack of a switch(which can again only be accomplished using a clunky and overpriced gimmick that looks terrible even in the inventor's hands).

--A

Thanks Andy for the reply. And yes you are right on the money when you say "misremembered performance". I sometimes think this is the funniest thing in performing magic. I once heard a friend tell someone that he felt and checked my hands after a bill switch. I may have let him touch my hands ,but definitly not check them very well. But hey, I'll take the credit.

Thanks again.

-Kevin

I suppose if you wanted to bend a signed coin on the fly, you could wear TWO of the key-bending gimmicks (TT) sold by Guy Bavli... It couldn't possibly be more awkward than the pen gizmo from Yuval Keren, mentioned earlier.

Jerry

ROTFL, Jerry, you're right, I don't think it could be :o)

If the pen were much more reasonably priced, it would be a wonderfully convenient tool for pre-bending coins to switch, instead of having to travel around with a pair of pliers in your briefcase. Of course, with two small pieces of copper tubing and a few minutes with a file or Dremel(R) tool, one could make a suitable device for <$10 that would do the same thing, since the need to disguise it as a pen is eliminated. Heck, if Yuval released a barebones version of the gaff without the pen body, just two metal rods that did the deed, at a reasonable price, I'd buy it.

Don't remember the website, but earlier I saw a pair of plier made especially for bending coins. The price was $40.

I can't imagine this would be a popular item - esp. when there are ways of doing it with things already around the house.

Am I wrong?

I just started playing with my new Bent Cent. I like the subtlety of it and see a lot of room to "toy" with it..

If you feel compelled to switch it out, or are asked to repeat the trick, this is an ideal I'm messing with:

Borrow the penny while sitting at a table. Slide it across to the table's edge w/ your right hand, press it in the palm of your left hand, as per instructions.

Strain and press, then fling it back on the table, showing fatigue, blowing on your fingers and asking if the penny is "hot yet?"

Say you'll "try one more time," slide it over again, let it drop on your lap as you switch in the Bent Cent clipped in the right fingers that you now press into your left palm. (the table edge drop vanish - my very first, and still favorite, coin sleight - from Severin?)

Then do the rest of the routine.

Ive been doing the bend illusion that fork benders do with a coin lately and it kills (try it )trust me do it in the mirror and you'll see how good it looks

Hi, Andy!
I had mine made at a machine shop for $48. Two pieces of high strength steel that can bend a 50 cent piece--I stick with pennies, nickels and quarters. I conceal the gaffs in my hands and do it right in front of them. I vanish them with two ravens used as pulls.
Let me know if you want one made.

-Jay

Kevin Hall,
that sounds like Richard Osterlinds coin bending routine. He's fooled Max Maven and others with it. You can see it on his Osterlind Mysteries of the Mind DVD #2 in the 'Bonus Materials' section.
Hope this helps.

Jay