In 1980, Brick Tilley was on tour with Mark Wilson in China. He learned a lot of traditional Chinese magic, and the effect he describes in BOWLED OVER is a really good one.

The effect: The magician displays two empty rice bowls. Placing them mouth to mouth, so one bowl is inverted on the other, the magician makes a magic pass, picks up the bowls, and shakes them. A clattering noise is heard in the bowls. Separating the bowls, the magician reveals three coins have appeared in the bowls! Wow!

What you get: The PDF is only four pages long, but it’s sufficient for explaining the effect. There is also a demo video on the product page that should be helpful.

What you will need: You will need two rice bowls and three coins. If you don’t have the proper bowls, check eBay, Etsy, thrift stores, Facebook classified ad groups, etc. In the manuscript, Brick mentions using dollar-size coins. I found a lovely pair of bowls on eBay for this effect, and while these bowls don’t work for dollar coins, they work perfectly well for half dollars.

Skill level: This is not a beginner trick, but it should be within the reach of anyone with at least some magic knowledge. If you can pick up one bowl in each hand, you should be able to do this trick.

Points to consider:

• Magic that involves money appearing will almost always get the audience’s attention.
• There is no sleight of hand, which makes it a great trick for someone like me. (I sometimes joke that the most difficult sleight I do is the cross-cut force!) The effect is all in the handling and misdirection.
• The effect resets quickly; it should take much less than a minute to set it up.
• This effect will probably work best for parlor and intimate theater performances. Video and Zoom are also possibilities.

I love the straightforward nature of the effect. If it seems like a fit for you, I think you’ll enjoy performing this.

BOWLED OVER is a PDF manuscript available for instant download at Lybrary.  You can visit the product page and buy BOWLED OVER now by Clicking Here.

Important: The link above is an affiliate link. I may make a small commission if you purchase through the link, but I only want to recommend products that I think are worthwhile. So click the link and maybe I can buy a hamburger for lunch! Ha ha!

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