FIG. 3.—THE DOUBLE
SOU.
[Fig. 3] shows, not how the experiment is performed, but how the double coin is prepared. It is simply an ordinary sou, over which is placed a sort of hollow cover containing the impression of the coin, and which fits on the latter so accurately that the piece looks like an ordinary sou. This cover is lifted and made to slide alongside of the coin, thus showing two pieces instead of one.
The cover is stamped from a thin sheet of copper placed upon a sou serving as a mould. It might possibly be made by means of some electro-metallurgical process. The mutilation of United States coins is forbidden under penalty of the law.
THE DISSOLVING COIN.
Borrow a silver dollar, and have it marked, so that it can be identified. Ask some one to hold the coin horizontally between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand within the folds of a silk handkerchief, and over a glass full of water held in the left hand, [Fig. 1]. Your assistant’s two hands being thus occupied, you will have no sort of indiscretion to fear. Stepping back a few feet, direct your assistant to let the coin drop; and the impact against the bottom of the glass will be heard by the entire assemblage. When the handkerchief is raised the coin is no longer in the glass, but has made its way to your hand or to the pocket of a spectator. Let it be examined, and it will be found to be really the coin that has been previously marked.
In order to perform this trick it is necessary to have a disk of glass of the same diameter as a silver dollar ([Fig. 2]).
Hide this disk, A ([Fig. 3]), in the palm of your right hand, turned toward you. This will not prevent you from holding the coin that has been confided to you between the thumb and forefinger of the same hand. While your hand is concealed by the handkerchief in which it is thought that you placed the coin, you shift the latter and give the assistant the glass disk to hold, by the edge, of course, and not by the flat surface, so that the substitution that you have made cannot be perceived by the touch.