We recently attempted some focus-group testing to identify which false transfer technique was the best for vanishing a coin.
Different groups of laypeople each watched a video of a different coin vanish based on a false transfer, ranging from a simple French drop to much more complicated modern coin techniques.
Which one was the most fooling?
In a way… none of them.
Almost every respondent (we had planned to do more, but stopped at 40) when asked if they had an idea of how the coin vanished, said some variation of exactly what happened. “He never actually placed it in his other hand.”
I expected that response with simple false transfers. But the same thing happened with beautiful, advanced moves like these:
