– Intro / Brief Overview
What’s up everybody and welcome to Magic For Beginners, my name is Keith and in today’s video we’re going to be looking at and reviewing a downloadable magic trick called Pretty Penny by Michael John and can be found on Penguin Magic.
– What Is The Routine/Trick?
So what is Pretty Penny? The ad copy for this trick states that it’s the best coin in bottle ever and is one of the biggest magic discoveries of the century. For the trick, you can essentially take a coin and have it visually melt through a bottle and give it away as an impossible souvenir. There is a number of different routines which you can perform this including one which the spectator can help in making the coin impossibly fit into the opening of the bottle under a napkin. This is perfect for both social media videos and also can be performed in person too.
– How Much Does It Cost?
So how much does this cost? On the Penguin web site you can find this for $19.95 which is about £15.70 in British Pounds which is great value for a download I think.
– Quick Performance
Here’s a quick performance of the trick which is performed by Michael in the trailer and on the instructions too.
– What Do You Get With It?
So when you buy this, what do you get with it? As stated in the intro, this is a download and you get no gimmicks or anything, it’s all done digitally. You’ll receive a video which is just under 44 minutes long and has a bunch of performances and explanations on how to do a few different effects. The main bulk of the tutorial features talks about how you can have this coin in bottle prepared ready to perform and also how you can do one trick on the fly too without any preparation needed as such.
After the prep work is done with, you’ll be then taught four different variations of how to perform this effect and all can be done in person and for video. There’s the optical rise which is by far my favourite one as it’s amazingly visual and with some clean up work can be done in person even though it looks like it can’t. There’s also the quarter penny, penny push and penny slam.
– Is It Easy To Perform and where can you perform it?
You don’t need any gimmicked bottle or any gimmicked coins at all, you do however need to use specific bottles like a Corona bottle or a Modelo bottle and a American penny, but for the UK magicians, it can only be done with a coke bottle and a 5p which does limit how and where you can do this based on those things. I did read that a US dime works with a coke bottle too for those American’s who are watching. The thing which you need to do is have grab a bunch of different bottles and some coins and experiment with this to see which ones will work perfectly and which ones need to be prepared prior to the performance but all of this is covered in the download.
As stated, you can use a borrowed coin and a borrowed bottle but if you’re using a borrowed bottle, you’d have to check the bottle to see which method you can use for the trick as despite using a corona bottle or a coke bottle, they’re actually manufactured differently and this is where the experimenting comes into play before going out to perform this.
– Can You Inspect It?
Can you inspect this? Yes, you can hand out the bottle and the coin inside for inspection after you’ve performed the trick and the coin is genuinely inside the bottle and the only way to release it would be to break the bottle and get the coin out. There’s no sleight of hand needed to get the coin into the bottle, as there’s prep done prior to the trick, or can be done right under the spectators nose depending on the bottle and performance you’re doing. If you do the effect without the prepped bottle, the work needed to get it working is minimal if you’ve checked out certain things prior to performing it. Which means you can borrow a coin and some one’s bottle they’re using to drink from and perform this.
Before we head on with the review, I just wanted to stop and ask those who aren’t subscribed to the channel, it would mean the world if you could subscribe as it would help the channel massively and help push out videos like these to people who need to see them and this would be pretty pennyful to me.
– Is It Well Made?
Is it well made? Yes, the tutorial download is well made and there’s good quality video and audio and the instructions isn’t rushed and makes it very clear about the effect and how to perform it etc. There’s nuances over the different routines and performance ways to do things using this method, along with in depth tutorials of how to prepare the bottle and coin.
– Positives
One of the positives with this is the price of the effect as it’s a great price for a download I think and once you have learned this, it’s one of the most visual coin in bottle effects that I’ve seen in a long time too. Usually it’s a wham bam, thank you mam quick and sporadic movement to make the coin appear, but the optical rise can be performed very slow and is of course super visual. This is such a fun and great discovery for 2024 I think and really opens up some new options for the impossible coin in bottle routine and allows you to gift the spectator the coin and bottle and there’s nothing left over to raise any suspicious evidence for any tomfoolery according to the spectators.
– Negatives
Let’s talk about some of the negatives with this. For social media video, this is fantastic but these can all be performed with an audience too, but please beware that some of these routines to be used for this effect is depending on audience angles, as some of the tricks require audience management, but its easily handled for seasoned performers. One of the ways to prepare the bottle too may take some one a few minutes to do, so that’s to bear in mind about it all, so if you want to perform this multiple times a night, unless you take the bottle back then you’d have to prepare multiple bottles ready to use, but again with one of the ways to prepare this, it can be done on the fly and while performing so you can do this whilst doing any other routine, but it’s bottle depending of course.
As stated about a coin and bottle to use, there’s specific bottles which you need to use and in the tutorial, it’s USA based and uses the US penny, so for people in the UK unless we introduce those coins for coin tricks, we have to use our currency and due to this, I found that I needed to use a Coke bottle and 5p, so I can’t use Corona like the video. I’ll be experimenting with other bottles and coins to see what I can get use, such as Budweiser and Heineken, as that’s usually some of the bottles used at venues and places in the UK, so that’s a bit of a negative for people outside of the US who wants to use this.
Hope you enjoyed the review and found it helpful or useful, and if you did, please drop a comment on the video to let me know. I’ve got some other fantastic reviews coming up on the channel soon too, so keep an eye out for them and if you want to check out more reviews from me, check out the playlist and the video on screen to watch more and until next time, see ya!
