PROS

After seeing this, I can’t imagine doing any other coin bite routine! In the DVD, they start by talking about the motivation for the coin bite. The two biggest problems are:
1. Why would you bite into a dirty borrowed coin?
2. Why would you restore it after biting into it?

SansMinds has solved these two problems with the Chocolate Coin. I really like their performance premise where you borrow a quarter and smell it. “Hmm, it smells like chocolate”. This provides all the motivation to peel the foil and take a bite. After taking a bite, you realize that the chocolate doesn’t taste so good. This is the motivation to spit it out and restore the coin to give it back to the participant.

The DVD explains the handling very well. Every step is explained in detail. The production and camera work is very good so every move is clearly seen. At one point, they have a close up of the performers face and coin up close.

The gimmick comes as a US quarter. In the DVD they talk about how you could use any similar coin if you are from a different country. I agree with this. In addition, while they didn’t cover this, you could rub the image of any similar size coin onto a piece of aluminum foil. Place the foil over the gimmick and press it over the edges. With small scissors or a knife, cut the excess foil away. This raises another point: The package comes with several disks of aluminum foil cut to the size of the gimmick. All this comes in a handy coin size envelope. I cut a bunch of square pieces of aluminum foil a bit larger than the coin gimmick and inserted them into the coin envelope as replacement foils. You simply rub them over the coin and over the edge of the coin and cut away the excess.

They also provide a couple replacement rubber bands for your gimmick coin and provide an explanation of how to replace them.

CONS

The effect is pretty much consistent with the ad copy. However, the ad copy does say that “you can turn any borrowed coin into a chocolate coin.” This isn’t really totally accurate. You would want to do this effect with a similar size and color coin.

VERDICT

I really love this! I can’t see why anyone would do the regular coin bite routine now that this is available.

Suggestions

For some reason, the handling at the end, where the performer spits the coin back onto the coin just didn’t sit right with me. It seems to me that a bit of the magic was lost in this move. I think it would be better to just replace the foil and hand the participant their borrowed coin back. Another idea is to have a third regular quarter that has aluminum foil over it. You borrow a quarter, perhaps taking an old version quarter, doing the Chocolate Coin handling, and then handing them the third coin, the regular coin with aluminum foil over it. As an additional alternative, you could cut a “bite” out of the third coin. Cut it out with a dremmel tool. Let the spectator unpeel the quarter and discover the coin with a bite piece missing. Take the coin and offer to replace it with another quarter from your pocket to make them whole. Go into your pocket with their borrowed coin and come out with it, so you are just returning their borrowed coin. You can now reuse your second gimmick over and over.

Finally! Here is something that takes the old (by now) premise of biting a coin and spitting the piece back on to restore it and gives it a real justification!

I always liked the idea and the visual nature of the coin bite but I never did it for a number of reasons. 1) Every magician and his sibling was (and still are) doing it. 2) This is the biggest one for me: Who borrows a quarter and puts it into their mouth to do whatever to it? Do you have any idea what is on that coin?! I would NOT want to know where it has been or where the hands that have touched it have been, let alone put it in my mouth... 3) Why would you bite a metal object with your teeth and then restore it? In my mind I think it would be more impressive that if you could do that, it would be more fascinating to leave the object in that impossible state.

I will not go on too much more because the effect is nothing different than that, except for a few small details.

Short and sweet ad copy and because of that, it is in fact 100% accurate.

What you get is a short DVD that is well-produced with great audio and video quality. Herman is the host and does an excellent job of teaching the effect from set-up to finish. There are also live performances on the DVD.

You also receive the necessary items, including the familiar gimmick, two replacement "things" and a small bunch of foil circles or in this context, "wrappers".

The gimmick is quite well-made for being in a $30 package. Unlike the traditional coins of its type, this one only has one cut as opposed to two. It also has one side that is coated with a chocolate-looking paint to give it the effect of looking like a chocolate coin.

The other difference in this effect is that you perform not only the biting and restoring of a chocolate coin, but you transform the borrowed quarter into the foil-wrapped chocolate coin, then at the end you "seal" it back up and it changes back into the borrowed quarter.

One small nit-pick: With my particular gimmick I had to add some coloration to certain edges to help hide the cut better because if my coin caught any glare from lights, it was very obvious. After my additional corrections, it was hardly noticeable. I understand why they did not do what I did, but I still think there is something they could have done. No big deal to me personally, just a thought.

Also, the chocolate-colored paint is very even but very glossy. I would suggest you find a way to dull the finish to make it look more authentic - most chocolate coins are not that shiny right out of their wrappers but rather matte. Use your own technique to dull the finish but make sure you do not use abrasive materials. Personally I used a brown Crayola marker and some model railroading supplies to dull the finish quite nicely.

The one thing they did not cover on the DVD which should have been on there was how to repair the gimmick if it should break. It is not hard to do, but there is a proper technique to it. The only other complaint I really have is that the "groove" is not as deep as it should be. I usually like to "double up" on the special something for security but this coin does not allow for that. If you have ever worked with gimmicks of this type, you will know what I mean.

One quick side note: Users of the traditional coin bite gimmick will remember being able to use those coins for a Coin in Bottle effect. You cannot do that with the Chocolate Coin.

The foil "wrappers" you get are thin aluminum foil circles as opposed to whole wrappers. They are barely bigger than the coin gimmick so you will have to keep them attached at the bottom via a piece of double-stick tape, re-positionable glue or other some such non-permanent/light tack adhesive. If you have a circular punch (such as those used for cutting circular pieces of paper for scrapbooking) you can make your own replacement "wrappers" with a thicker kitchen foil if you run out.

This is very easy to perform but it will take a little bit of practice to get the flow to where it should be - more finesse than anything else.

The gimmick is only made with a U.S. Quarter-Dollar coin but they claim that you can really use any silver coin of similar size from any country and perform the effect. I think this is true because they are not really looking at the coin closely enough to determine whether it is the right type or not. With proper audience management, before they get that chance you are restoring the coin and the wrapper, changing it back to their coin and giving it back.

If you like the traditional coin bite or if you have never done the traditional coin bite and like what you see in the trailer, you will not be disappointed with this. Well-done!