I found it unfortunate when Royal Magic started to put this trick out in plastic-because clearly, plastic matchboxes DON'T exist anywhere else, so far as I've seen.
I have been using this box for over twenty years. I have made several copies of it, using matchboxes that one may find in a bar, grocery store or kitchen cabinet. It is a small, potent miracle. I have mystified many people, using this box, a single 'penny', a playing or business card, and three matches formed into a triangle.
What's nice is that the gimmick is made from something that has been streamlined over the years-thus, making it smaller and easier to hide within the box's drawer. Slim down the gimmick, and you make the box more innocent than with what you'll probably get from Royal.
The first version I had of this trick, was found in a dark, old novelty store in Manhatten's Times Square. I'm talking Times Square BEFORE Mayor Guliani's reign and Disney injected facelift of that part of the Apple. A bit later, Tannen's Magic had a version called 'Well I Never!'-same box, but with an emphasis on the match triangle-or 'Bermuda Triangle', which 'made' the coin disappear.
Besides the vanish or penetration effect, adding a locking penny/dime, can expand this into a longer routine. Next to this box, I've done the old 'sympathetic matchboxes'-recently updated by Paul Richards and his 'Matchbox Mambo'. Add 'Haunted Matchbox', and thats a good few minutes of solid magic, with 'ordinary' objects...that take up so little pocket space.
Simply put, I LOVE this trick. Easy to carry, can make a coin silently evaporate (penetrate or change), and the effects/impact are much, much larger than props involved. GET ONE, and remake it with a real matchbox.
Forget the plastic and cheap price, there's a valuable principal here-like so many others, likewise cloaked in cheap, inauthentic materials,- limited instructions included.