Author Description

The history of this effect goes back a long time. It goes back to the days I was renting booths at magic conventions and hawking my books to any magician that would wander by. That may be thirty years ago. One of the other dealers was Palmer Tilden. He owned and operated Sterling Magic at the time. We had lunch together one day and he suggested that I come up with a trick that he could manufacture and sell. I did not take it serious, however, the idea stuck in the back of my mind. Later, I thought about it and took up the challenge. I came up with the concept of Hugs and Kisses.The trick used six coins. Three had X's cut into them and the other three had O's cut into them. The effect consisted of sliding coins under two sheets of paper lying on the table. Coppers with O's were slid under one sheet while silvers with X's showing were slid under the other paper. When the papers were raised, the silver and copper coins were seen to still be where they were placed. However, the X's and O's had changed places.There was a major problem in that the props were very expensive to make. Palmer had a staff of several women with jeweler saws cutting X's and O's into the coins. This made for a very expensive trick. The secret of success in selling the trick was in how it was presented. Palmer put a large piece of cardboard in the back of a booth at magic conventions. Then, he would do it for a potential customer. After the trick was performed, Palmer would ask the spectator that had just watched it to explain how it worked. The spectator could not. Then, Palmer would turn and put a line on the large piece of paper at the back of the booth. Then he would turn and say, "That is fifty nine people that cannot explain how this works." As the convention proceeded, there would be a lot of marks on the cardboard.Sometime after that, I happened to be living in L. A. near the Magic Castle. I became a member and hung around the place often. This led to an encounter with Dai Vernon. He was v