The magician announces a very special trick, one that is seldom seen because it is so difficult

He shows a half dollar and states that he intends to make it disappear under the strictest possible test conditions. He gives the coin to someone to examine while he removes his coat and rolls up his left shirt sleeve. He asks the spectator to testify that the coin is a regulation and quite solid fifty-cent piece, then holds out his hand and asks that it be placed in the center of his palm.

Then he spreads out a handkerchief (preferably borrowed) and lays it carefully over the coin and the hand. All this is done slowly so that the audience will be quite satisfied that no sleight of hand is possible. To emphasize this further he asks a spectator to reach in under the handkerchief and feel the coin to be sure that it is still there. Two or three other spectators are asked to do the same.

Then, still in slow motion and without any sign of a suspicious move, he says dramatically, "Watch! One, two, three -- go!" He pulls the handkerchief away slowly. His hand is empty; the coin has gone. The handkerchief is tossed to the audience. "I'm not sure," the performer says, "how that's done myself."

Does it sound difficult? It's supposed to. That's part of the misdirection. It's actually very easy. This trick illustrates perfectly that in magic it is not so much what you do as how you do it. The half dollar vanishes into thin air because the last spectator to reach under the handkerchief to assure himself that the coin was there is your confederate. He simply takes it away.

It is the selling job you do that is important. If you are dead serious about everything you say and do and convince the audience that they are about to witness a miracle -- that's what they'll see.