Best Object Through Hand?

Hello everyone! My name is Tyler Scott and I've been doing magic for about a year now. This is the first trick I have ever invented and it is called Doubting Thomas. You show your hands empty at the beginning and end of the trick and they are fully examinable. The beautiful part is that the trick will show a mark on both the back and palm of your hand where the object has passed through it. It also has an instant reset so the trick can be performed as many times as you would like. You could put a coin, bottlecap, battery, pokerchip, thumb tack (some practice for that may be required), or anything that is small enough to fit in your palm. In my opinion, it's the easiest and best object through hand trick availabe and it's all thanks to the gimmick I have created. Don't like gimmicks? I have included an impromptu version of the trick as well. Here is a conceptual trailer of Doubting Thomas as well as a live performance compilation. I would love to hear your feedback! Thanks!
Trailer:
Live performance compilation:
 

Josh Burch

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Aug 11, 2011
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My favorite object through hand is England's Penetration from Paul Harris' Art of Astonishment Book 2. It looks similar to your effect with a couple exceptions.

Basically the magician drops a coin through the spectators hand, twice. There are no gimmicks, it is very easy to do, and the dropping hand is left with the fingers open. It is visual and visceral. I have tried to improve upon the plot but for me it is difficult to beat England's Penetration.

I don't perform a coin through hand using my own hand on a regular basis. If I did I would probably pick something that happened slowly. Your hand is a small object and it would be easy to assume that the object was thrown around the hand. To avoid that thought I prefer slower versions. I know Greg Rostami has one that is very good on the market.

As far as creating goes, that is awesome that you are looking for new magic to perform and create. It should be commended. This coin through hand of yours is fine but in my eyes it really isn't an improvement and if I was to take a guess as to how it was done I don't feel like it is very innovative method wise.

In my opinion the best object through hand out there is Bizzaro's silk through hand which you see at 1:22 of this video

 
Hello Josh Burch and thank you so much for taking the time to view my content and give me feedback! I'll definitely check out all the recommendations that you gave me.

As far as my claim on innovation in my method, without giving too much away for obvious reasons, I believe it is innovative for a couple of reasons:
1. Based upon my research of objects through hands, I had not found one where you can have a spectator fully examine your hands before and after the trick with an instant reset if need be. With this being said, I should also note that my method is not forced perspective or throwing the coin around my hand (that would be hard to do with a battery). It's a gimmick that does the visual effect thus why the spectator is caught off guard.

2. I had also not found an object through hand effect that left a natural mark where the object entered and exited the hand. My method leaves a natural mark that can be fully examined by a spectator and the mark can be matched by the object that they catch in their hand because it was indeed left by the same object (i.e. I slap a battery through my hand, a rectangular mark is left on the back of my hand and found on the same spot on my palm as if it had temporarily scarred it). I know that there are "scarring" inks out there that achieve this such as Ran Pink's "Cut" but I promise you this is a natural mark caused by the very object that is being performed.

3. The Doubting Thomas gimmick is not exclusively for object through the hand effects. I just prefer to do it that way for the time being because it is very up close and visual for a spectator to participate in. Other ideas I have for my gimmick are for vanishes and ditches which will make sense if you ever happen upon my method. An example of this would be you could force a special type of card on a spectator and have them place it back in the deck. A quick riffle shuffle and then it magically vanished...or so it seems to a spectator. But the best part to a performer would be that the special card was never "ditched" inside a pocket.

4. It makes a great combo with other tricks. A couple of ideas I have in mind for it is mixing it with Yigal Mesika's "Electric Touch+" and having a battery visually penetrate through my hand and claiming it has given me a charge and then using the Electric Touch+ I could then prove it to the spectator by shocking them. I also have another idea of mixing it with vanishing ink and drawing a hole on my hand that will visually show on the other side as well. Then by throwing a coin through the "hole" it will obviously have a coin go through but the "hole" on the hand will magically disappear right after the coin is thrown through. There are many possibilities with the Doubting Thomas gimmick that can pair it with other tricks to supplement them.

5. It's innovative in its simplicity to learn and confidence it gives to the performer. I really do hold true to my claim that a person could learn this trick within a short period of time because my gimmick will do most of the work for them. It is much simpler than learning complex sleight of hand techniques that leave the potential to get caught. As of this writing, I have been performing Doubting Thomas for a little under a year and have never been caught nor has anyone guessed the method yet because it is pretty left field.

I hope this can clear up any possible confusion left by the trailer and performance samples. I have other samples of me performing it with a closed fist but don't look nearly as good because of some technical difficulties with not being familiar with using an HD camera at the time and how sensitive the lighting is. Once again, thank you for your feedback though! It really helps.
 
Hello everyone! My name is Tyler Scott and I've been doing magic for about a year now.

As of this writing, I have been performing Doubting Thomas for a little under a year

So are you saying you came up with this pretty much as soon as you started doing magic? That in itself set off alarm bells...

...however, I'm not one for jumping to conclusions, so I watched the videos anyway, and here's what I thought:



I admire you spirit, but I really don't see what this brings to the table. There is nothing here that could not be accomplished using very, very basic sleight of hand. If anything this is less clean than sleight of hand versions.

When I post up my own original routines, I always appreciate the brutally honest feedback the most, so I'm hoping you're the same, so here goes:

-This obviously needs a duplicate coin. Most sleight of hand versions don't. So not impromptu.

- You show both hands empty at the start, but then have to place your left hand out of view before you do the trick. In a trick like this, your hands are essentially one of the props, so they should remain in view.

-When you bring the hand back, you seem to be holding it in a bit of cramped position. If that is the position the hand needs to be in, you may as well just be classic palming the coin.

-When you slam the coin down, you keep the right hand closed and then very quickly have to move both hands out of view again, presumably to enable a ditch of both the gimmick and the duplicate coin. Also, there's barely enough time for the effect to register. You stare at the coin in an attempt to misdirect from this fact, but the focus of the trick here should really be on you hands, not the coin. It's like doing cut and restored rope and insisting everyone look at the scissors. The hands are the important thing here, and there are removed from the performance 'zone' way to quickly.

-The effect is so minor, i'm not sure why anyone would want to carry a gimmick around to perform it.

It is much simpler than learning complex sleight of hand techniques that leave the potential to get caught.

A false transfer and a classic palm is unlikely to be considered 'complex sleight of hand' in anyone's book.Not sure why that would leave you more open to being caught either. It's much easy to palm one coin for a few seconds whilst pretending it is in the other hand than it is to have to perform a steal, palm both a gimmick and a duplicate coin, then hide a second coin and do a ditch, all whilst the focus should be on your hands. If anything, it looks like both hands are dirty right after the penetration. This is when people are going to want to look at your hands.

Again, I admire you spirit, and always admire attempts to create, but with just a year in magic, I'm not this will be worth anyones time.

What I did like: You performance manner is great. Your videography and editing skills are also fantastic. The trailer looks like it was made by an experience professional. You could certainly have a career producing magic videos for other creators who maybe aren't quite so handy with a camera. Something to thing about.

Rev

PS: I obviously don't know the actual gimmick involved here, so feel free to correct me on any of the above. I'm just going on what I can see in the performance video.
 
Hello Rev! Thank you so much for replying to the thread and giving me feedback. I responded to some of your concerns but unfortunately I'm new to this forum and don't know how to show them as quotes so I will just bold all my statements and leave quotes on yours. I appreciate all feedback and will take everything you said to heart.


"So are you saying you came up with this pretty much as soon as you started doing magic? That in itself set off alarm bells...

...however, I'm not one for jumping to conclusions",
I came up with Doubting Thomas after a failure in one of my first performances. I was using the coin through hand technique that is taught by Howcast on youtube. I didn't like their technique at all because it is very easy to figure out how it's done so I resorted to a new method that would "fix" all of the issues I had with the trick. I also didn't want to do it Dynamo's way because I wanted it to not be palmed at all and wanted it to be done with basically any object that is smaller than a person's palm. I wasn't aware of any object through hand tricks that allowed the performer to have a spectator to fully examine their hands at the beginning and end with an instant reset if they wish because I often have people say "Do that again!". I also wanted to eliminate the need for palming because a spectator could easily guess by the way a hand is being held that a second coin is being used. That was just my thought process in wanting to expand on a trick and I found no other tricks that quite fit the bill that I was looking for.


"I admire you spirit, but I really don't see what this brings to the table. There is nothing here that could not be accomplished using very, very basic sleight of hand. If anything this is less clean than sleight of hand versions."
That is a good criticism and it shows what I failed to explain in the trailer why this is different. I will release a Q&A video soon with hopefully an updated trailer. What I believe makes Doubting Thomas unique in the first place is the mark that is left on the back side of the hand and on the palm of the hand seemingly leaving evidence of an object going through. It's a natural mark so it will match the exact shape of the object being used. I'm not sure of any other tricks that have this ability. Second, in palming the coin or using sleight of hand, the hand has to be contorted in different ways. With Doubting Thomas the need for carrying a coin as such is not needed. The effect can be done with the hand held completely flat and fingers spread out and tilted at many different angles. I failed to show this in the trailer and I agree that my hand looks very awkward. I didn't realize this while performing because the spectator and I were looking at my hand straight down and to us it appeared perfectly flat. I promise though that your hand can be perfectly flat to perform this and not contorted in an awkward way. I researched the effects that Josh Burch mentioned and what my trick can do that "England's Penetration can't do" is leave visual evidence of the effect nor does the coin have to be palmed. As far as "Stuck!" it would seem that our impromptu versions are very similar but very different. I believe my gimmick version is stronger than the impromptu version because it can be done with any object smaller than a person's palm. "Stuck!" seems to only work with coins and he mentions that half-dollar coins may be harder to perform where as my gimmick will eliminate any issues with that difficulty. Also Doubting Thomas brings other tricks to the table besides object through the hand but I'll get to that later. So that is what I believe makes my trick unique.


"-This obviously needs a duplicate coin. Most sleight of hand versions don't. So not impromptu."
The trailer does not show off the impromptu version as I simply prefer to perform with the gimmick instead. In the tutorial I do include a gimmick version which is similar to "Stuck!" but is different in it's own way. I hadn't even heard of Stuck! until Josh Burch mentioned it above.

- You show both hands empty at the start, but then have to place your left hand out of view before you do the trick. In a trick like this, your hands are essentially one of the props, so they should remain in view.

"-When you bring the hand back, you seem to be holding it in a bit of cramped position. If that is the position the hand needs to be in, you may as well just be classic palming the coin."
As I mention before this is an error in my performance. To me the hand appeared perfectly flat from my view while performing. I had no idea from the side it looked so awkward but no the hand can be completely spread as far as you want thus making it impossible to palm a coin.

"-When you slam the coin down, you keep the right hand closed and then very quickly have to move both hands out of view again, presumably to enable a ditch of both the gimmick and the duplicate coin. Also, there's barely enough time for the effect to register. You stare at the coin in an attempt to misdirect from this fact, but the focus of the trick here should really be on you hands, not the coin. It's like doing cut and restored rope and insisting everyone look at the scissors. The hands are the important thing here, and there are removed from the performance 'zone' way to quickly."
The Doubting Thomas gimmick never needs to be ditched and is never ditched during the performance. I guess there is a difference of style that needs to be addressed and this is where we may disagree. My style is a very hands-on spectator show. I want the spectator to be involved with the trick. I don't like them just sitting there watching and thus that is why I ask the spectator to try and catch the object. If it's a coin a may even ask to borrow their own coin or if I'm at the casino, I may ask to borrow a poker chip. This gets them very involved during the process of the trick which is why I only draw attention to my hands at the beginning to show them clean and then after to show them the mark and that they are still clean. So my focus on what happened, not necessarily my hands but that's just my personal style. I will note that you are right in my misdirection but during the instant reset the hands can remain in view of the spectator at all times. I just don't want to give to much away for obvious reasons.

"-The effect is so minor, i'm not sure why anyone would want to carry a gimmick around to perform it."
I personally love object through the hand because it gets great reactions. My gimmick provides a very easy and reassuring way to perform it. I'm not sure of a good sleight of hand method that could be done with a small block of wood. Once you learn the gimmick and method, a small block of wood being slammed through the hand is certainly possible. But once again the gimmick can be used for other tricks as well. It is only limited by your creativity. Object through the hand, particularly coins, are my favorite to perform.

Your criticisms helped point out a lot of mistakes I have with communicating this effect. I need to explain that a gimmick is never ditched and it is worn on you at all times. I think I put way too much emphasis on what kind of reactions the gimmick can get rather than what it can do. I think the ability to put any object smaller than your hand through your hand is unique enough by being clean at the beginning and end with an instant reset. I also need to show that this is beginner friendly and garnered more to that audience rather than experienced performers. I can see why experienced performers would prefer sleight of hand to a gimmick but beginners might like the fact that sleight of hand is not needed so no palming is required. A gimmick will handle most of the work. I was also hoping to teach this at a cheap price and pack with content. I think I need to show off other effects that Doubting Thomas can do such as vanishes/ditches, appearances/steals, and an Invisible Deck routine that is done with a regular deck instead of an actual invisible deck. I also teach in my tutorial how to react if something goes wrong with the gimmick and show how this is done in a live scenario. With all of this new information and how I should change my marketing, is my effect worthy enough for a beginner in magic to learn for around $5.00? Thank you again for all of your responses I really appreciate it.
-Tyler
 

Tower of Lunatic Meat

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Sep 27, 2014
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And now, words from a rookie!

I feel like this thread is 'Can You Fool Theory11?'

Here's my take. You're a year in and you're already constructing your own stuff, that's crazy. I'm a year in and can't even begin to figure out how or where to start the thought process of doing so.

To me, this looked like a 'coin through can/glass' effect. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that when you get to see and hear the coin clinking around, the reaction seems to last longer than seeing and touching the coin. To me, it seems like once you are touching the coin, that's it. There's a little delay in comprehending what just happened, but I think the 'sensory combination' that the audience needs to use for 'coin through can/glass' provides better reactions.

I'm going with Josh Burch in that a slower '__X__ through hand/leg/head/kidney' would provide better reactions in what you're trying to do.
I know that you've worked hard creating what I've done and constructing a routine for it. But is there a way to use another object. You say that you like audience involvement, why not have them PULL the item through. I'm thinking like a piece of string, a card.
I'm not exactly sure if any of that is feasible in the 'surrounded' sort of environment that you seem to do really well in. Maybe a string or lace could work.

Again, I'm a magic rookie and well behind the inventor curve.

On the note of these sort of effects; The only '__X__ through hand/leg/head/kidney' effect I know of, and some of you guys are going to kick me in the jimmy-jam for mentioning the brand name.

*deep breath*

Tenyo. Magic.

The trick in question is called 'Bio Shock'. It's a card-through-hand effect. It's not the *best* thing they have ever released. But it might give you some ideas.

Keep up the work, though. Regardless if this works out or changes in direction, you seem to be very into inventing magic and I would keep that going. Keep on learning and inventing, brother
 
Brett Hurley, thank you for replying to the thread. Don't discredit yourself for being a fellow rookie. I value your input a lot more than what you would think.

Oh man! How did I not think of this before? String through the hand that they can pull?!! Yes of course that can be done with Doubting Thomas. I need to go run out and try that. Spectators would totally eat that stuff up...(speaking of which maybe I should do it with spaghetti). And yes it would work in a completely surrounded environment.

Anyways your idea is exactly what I want out of Doubting Thomas. I want to see other people utilize the gimmick in ways I haven't thought of yet. I don't know how string didn't go through my mind but yes that is absolutely brilliant and I will definitely utilize it in future performances. Thanks for the tip.

Of course Doubting Thomas is not solely about objects through the hand (which is my personal favorite effect it can do). Based upon the feedback of this thread I need to show off what other tricks can be done with it. As soon as my Media Director gets back with me we will probably shoot my Invisible Deck routine with Doubting Thomas that can be done with a brand new deck of cards completely fresh.

Once again thank you for the tip. I have just one question for you: Would you consider buying Doubting Thomas at a cheap price if it came with Five Different Methods taught including Objects through the hand, Impromptu, and Invisible Deck? I'm thinking in the $5.00 range for how much content I packed into it with teaching on even if you "mess it up". Thanks for your input.
 

Tower of Lunatic Meat

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Sep 27, 2014
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No problem!

I wouldn't get Doubting Thomas at the time being. And it's nothing that has to do with the trick itself, it's the mater of who would appreciate the effect he most, and I believe that the effect plays over well with older audiences/adults.

The issue is that I don't believe effects like '__X__ through __Y__' goes over well with children and elderly audiences. As I intend to only do volunteer magic (basically safe, sower, and more predictable settings...I think)

Okay. I will say this, I have one effect like this that I CAN perform with children. Basically , you're 'eating'/pushing cards through your cheek.
I have it initially as a 'card prediction', then I predict that the 'cards are delicious' and go through with the effect. I then offer if anyone wants a bite. Regardless if they say yes or no, I have a response for either and ditch it. It's more silly than anything else. It took me about 3 weeks to pen-and-paper it all down (It's Tenyo Magic's 'Ghost Card' if you're interested), so I imagine it would take me a while to try and construct a lighthearted and less 'shock' routine with 'Doubting Thomas'. I'm not sure if that would be doing right by what you intended for it to be used for though.
 
Doubting Thomas is fully customizable to be used however you wish it to be used. I'm putting it out there as kind of here is the tools now go build something with it. Coin through hands, Invisible Decks, and vanishes are all my artwork but I'm interested in seeing what others can create with it. The reason why I asked if you would be interested is because I built this as a novice and loved it as a novice. I was wondering if it has an appeal to other novices. I've noticed with my creations the better I get, the more skill is required to perform them.
 
I appreciate you're mature response.

However, all your posts read like advertising spiel. You clearly want to market this and I honestly don't think it would be worth yours or anybody else's time. You may disagree, that's your prerogative.

is my effect worthy enough for a beginner in magic to learn for around $5.00?

To be blunt, no.

You're only a year into magic, what makes you think you're qualified to teach it? Also, you have no credentials, why should people be taking your advice over more experienced magicians? No one knows who you are and your only posts on this forum involve you selling your own effect. You haven't made any other contributions, so this whole thing at least looks like your just trying to make a fast buck.

If you want my honest advice, here's what you should do:

Give this away for free.

This will establish you as someone who wants to help others, further the art, isn't just out to make money. Once you have established a reputation, people will be way more willing to buy other things off you. This effect is just not marketable, but everyone likes a a freebie, and it will get your name out there.

Rev
 
Hey everyone!

I know it's been awhile but I have taken all of your pointers into consideration and have put out the final version of my Doubting Thomas project. I have added more content such as string through the hand(thanks to a suggestion by Brett Hurley) and an invisible deck plot with a regular deck of cards that all utilize my Doubting Thomas gimmick.

A YouTube reviewer has released his thoughts on my project and here is the video if you are interested in hearing his thoughts:
 
I quite like Greg Rostami's "Stuck". I make him perform it for people at conventions. (also, glad you like my stuff too)
I just recently discovered "Stuck" about a month ago and I like it as well. It's way better than my impromptu version but I definitely need to practice with it more so that I can perform it confidently.

I am also a big fan of your creations as well. I have always had a soft spot for creations that are organic and are easily relatable to the laymen audience. When journaling some of ideas and methods, I always try to go for an organic visual effect that almost anyone can relate to.
 
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