Bamboozlers: Four of Diamonds
Don't take an 'L' on this coin trick.
The Bet:
Place six coins into the configuration seen in (Fig. 1.). The coins should form a pattern that looks like the capital letter L. Challenge someone to move only one coin so there will be four coins in each row.
The Secret:
Pick up the coin at the top of the vertical row and place it on top of the coin at the bottom of that same row (Fig. 2). It was never said that the coins couldn’t be stacked onto one another. This bet works because most spectators think in two dimensions versus three.
You could present this challenge with bottle-caps, sugar packets, gold bars or whatever is handy. Should the spectator try to introduce more coins or cheat, then I’ll say what Captain Kirk said to Dr. Spock when discussing time travel, “Are you out of your Vulcan mind?”
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