Oh, and ask David Roth... he will set you straight if you happen to value his knowledge...

He will be appearing at MagiWhirl coming up soon, so feel free to ask him then.

I don't have to...

Of possible interest is 'Hugard's Coin Magic' released in 1935, It describes dozens of vanishing techniques NONE of which area retention style vanish.

The focus is on fake takes and where to ditch the coin, plus some acquitments to deflect suspicion.

The closest reference I could find is "Pretend to place a coin in your left hand, really palming it." as part of an explanation of how to hide the coin
between the buttons on your sleeve.

Based on several other older books explored I would guess that a "fake take" was popular and consider natural, while a "fake placement"
was less popular and considered not a natural move. Either way, an immediate reveal of the vanish was avoided,
so the word "vanish" was rarely connected to a Pass of any sort.

Thus, the transition/evolvement/origin of a Pass to be of placement over taking of a coin is more significant than who invented the term 'retention."

Even today, ask a lay person to pick up a coin on their right side and drop it into a bowl on their left. Most will transfer the coin by a take rather than a place.

There are several fake placements in Robert Houdin's secrets of conjuring book. One in particular seems like it could be similiar to a modern rov. It describes pulling the coin back from the fingertips to purse palm (although the term purse palm was not invented yet). It's unclear whether he would openly drop it to the palm before dropping it on the hand like a finger palm vanish or if it's just like an rov.

In T. Nelson Downs "The Art of Magic" he describes an RoV vanish exactly with pictures. This was published in 1909 and contains as a prelude the line, "we cannot claim that this pass is original, or even new; but it is not generally known to the profession." (Page 243 of the Houdinis reprint).

I remember seeing another description of the rov in the Sphinx somewhere between 1904 and 1906, but I could be misremembering.

I assume the RoV has been around as long as coin magic has been around in one way or another, it's just the terminology that's been invented.

Yes, "little known " and "not popular" may be the similar.

Yet, "retention vanishes" and "rov" techniques are not synonymous -- the use of Persistence of Vision but one of the many approaches possible.
The renaming of the POV to ROV had happened in the last decade or so as documented on many Café' forums and threads.

I agree that the concept of having the audience see an object that is not there is very old.
I have a 1932 document that describes a series of such moves - but none are vanishes or a retention type passes.

So, I guess one must always ask of a question like OP -- "What do you mean by retention vanish?"

A fake transfer based on a placement? A pass that uses PoV? A vanish that is memorable? Is the "vanish" part necessary? etc.

I talked to David yesterday, and brought up this subject. Steve Freeman has a nice way of doing the pass, but did not invent the concept. There are many variations out there, this is one of them. Hope that settles the question.

I doubt it.

Actually, the Retention vanish was invented in 1893 by a fellow by the name of Alfred Retention, which is why it is called the Retention vanish. He considered it a persistence-of-vision vanish.

And may we thus all sleep well tonight.

Tragically, I heard that Alfred went blind and no longer had retention of vision....

Coming late to this, but for those asserting that Steve Freeman invented the type of retention vanish in use today, this is incorrect. Steve's contribution was a specific technique where, as the left hand closes, the mound at the base of the thumb inside the palm pushes (or, more accurately, pivots) the coin to the right, which lessens the distance the right fingers must travel to cover and retrieve the coin. This small detail greatly enhances the retention aspect of the move, but the overall approach of retrieving the coin in this fashion from the left hand as it closes is much older than Freeman's addition -- by generations. As a side note, Freeman's technique is written up in the Magicana column in Genii magazine; I'm sorry that I don't have the date of publication.

Sounds like the same technique Herb Zarrow used. It is on the Encyclopedia of Coin Sleights.

Genii Magazine February 1974, page 65 in the Magicana section - titled "The Perfect Coin Vanish" - written by Charles Miller.

Frank Garcia's twister is a nice... twist.

John Cornelius also published his coin vanish in 1974. Although I haven't seen the writeup, I am told it uses the same technique. It is called the Slow Motion Coin Vanish, in the Pallbearers Review, vol 9 number 7. Steve Freeman published together with Derek Dingle the Slow Motion Coin Vanish II in the same magazine, vol 9 number 9.

Was playing with ROV and was making practice clips. Thought I would save this one.

www.worldmagiccenter.com/SecretStuff/SloMoROV.mp4

nice, but I like the Basic Vanish approach better since it can be executed with no coin at all,
with memory of the "seeing" based on understanding how the mind works over just playing with eyesight and timing.

but, the key here is that you never stop experimenting and adapting to what might work today.

that said, I repeat my feeling that the immediate reveal of the vanish is the problem. All of these fine sleights should be part of a flowing routine
in which it is never even remembered where the coin was placed or when - only the final memory of "must be magic."

All these difficult palming techniques, timing and angles are unnecessary if one just creates the conditions under which magic is desired and expected.

So, Al - I suspect that in a subtle way you demonstrate that the question of origin or "best" is minimal compared to creativity and just doing what works for audience and setting.
The moment a performer allows a favorite sleight/method to direct the flow of things, the events shifts downward from magic to magical to "gotcha" to "moving furniture."

kudos

Impressive - precise placement

This thread is rad.

I apologize for kinda going off topic as this thread is now a discussion of ROV or whatever you call it.

My point is that there are many ways to do the move and they all kinda look the same.

This link takes you to a collection I made long ago. Each uses a different method but all kinda look the same.
I think they all look the same to our audiences.

http://www.worldmagiccenter.com/MAGIC1/ROV/aaab0V.htm

This is not a recommendation on how to use them.
This depends if you want to be a sleight-of-hand artist or a person that does magic.

I posted a "Retention Vanish" combined with a "Lapping" move on the Perverse Magic thread of the Genii Forum on September 1, 2009 and it appears on page 167 of "Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First sixteen Years".

Basically there is an salt shaker on the table to my right.

I perform the Retention Vanish (in the effect I published it's with a folded bill) and as I reach for the salt shaker my right hand, still holding the bill, passes in an arc from my left hand to the salt shaker and as my hand is over my lap, the bill is dropped (lapped0.