What I write here about Self Working Coin Magic, can undoubtedly be applied to the rest of Karl Fulves's series of 'Self Working' books. I remember seeing them years ago, in regular bookstores. Back then, I was living in New York, and Tannen's Magic was where I'd go to get any magic related tricks, props, and literature. At a glance, I considered these Fulves books to be for kids, beginners, hobbyists,...soft, easy stuff that probably wasn't worth my time. Not when I could go to Tannen's and purchase a trick that Doug Henning had just performed on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show!
Years later, I saw these books in my 'new' magic shop-and looked more closely at the content. Needless to say, I have several of Fulves's Dover books, and have used a number of the effects in performance.
What I appreciate about Fulves, is that he did in ways what Scarne did in his 1950 book on card magic: he took professional/classic effects, and made them more accessiable to the average person. Remove difficult sleghts, streamline the handlings, yet maintain the effect. His writing style is mild, and these books contain very approachable material. For anyone wanting challenges, magic is full of daunting sleights, and routines that can take months and years to master. Look within the pages of Fulves's books, and one may find hidden gold-effects which come straight from masters like Blackstone, Vernon, Houdini, Andrus, Cornelius, Sam Schwartz, Al Cohen...and many, many more. So, sure these books are mild, commercial, good for starters-but contain solid material that can be adapted by professionals. This coin book is worthwhile before AND after Bobo.
The first trick in the book is an abc simple coin transformation, using a method of coins hiding behind coins-that WORKS, though it seems naive on paper. There's a beautiful effect further in, that I saw a European magician perform on television a few years ago: Confucius Coins by Jarrow. It can be presented as a puzzle, or a trick. You lay out a grid of alternating pennies and dimes-and with a single move (shown, or hidden) the coins are grouped separately again. Subtle, and mysterious. While there are no tricks involving coin shells, there are some which involve gaffed bills. The Allerton/Vernon classic 'Bamboozle', straight from Stars of Magic, is spelled out here. Likewise, another Vernon/Cervon classic, using two rows of nickels (or small Chinese Coins), all taken in both hands-yet all go to one hand at the trick's finish.
I don't do much with math in my magic-but there are a few worthwhile tricks here using dates on coins, applied to some powerful prediction effects. Eddie Joseph was a master of such coin date mentalism, and the tricks here relate to Joseph's book on coins. The very last trick in the book, by Sam Schwartz, is a coin date prediction that seems so impossible yet it works every time because of a mathematical principal that Schwartz discovered-yet NOONE is going to know about.
As with all Fulves's books in this series, any additional props/gimmicks, are with things laying around the house-or in your pockets and wallet. Again this speaks to accessibility, as if to say 'you don't need much to make miracles. It's not about how much money you spend at the magic store, or on props'. A good message I think, despite the fact that the magic industry encourages young-and not so young magician's to do otherwise, to a point of dependency.
So, I have complexity, challenges in some of my favorite effects-and in my library-but the Fulves books, are just as satisfying because of their simple effective tricks. Any student winds up with a built in history lesson, so far as backgrounds and root origins of the tricks. ALL of the books have something to offer, and the price for any of them?...accessible.