THE BEAR STATION AT THE JAMBOREE

Rosemary Johnson from Astoria. Oregon and Jack Sheen from Reno Nevada were our resident magicians. They wowed visitors to our exhibit with a great assortment of tricks.

Magic  Prisoner's Escape Rubber Band Tricks Rope Tricks Coin Tricks More Tricks

PRISONER'S ESCAPE

Tie a piece of string around wrists of your “victim” (one of the boys in your den).  Loop another piece of string over your victims wrist and tie it to your wrists. You are now locked together.  Challenge victim to get away without breaking the string or untying a knot. When he gives up, show him how. Push the center of your string through the loop on the inside of your victims wrist, bring this new loop back over his hand and draw it back through the wrist loop. You will be free. For double fun, tie two victims.  together in the same way. See diagram for help on doing trick.

Click HERE for another version of this trick.

  BUTTONHOLER

Make a buttonholer from a tongue depressor or craft stick with a loop of string through a hole in one end of it. The string must be shorter than the stick. Have boys loop string through the buttonhole in another Cub Scout's shirt pocket. The trick is to remove it without untying string.

To attach the buttonholer to the shirt, pull the pocket flap through the loop of the string until the point of the stick can be inserted in the buttonhole and the string drawn up tight. It is impossible to remove the stick in the usual way, since the string is shorter than the stick. Show boys how they can remove it by pulling the string back over the lapel and withdrawing stick, eye first.

THE APPEARING KNOT

Here you hand a spectator an ordinary handkerchief behind his back. You snap your fingers. When he removes the handkerchief, a knot has mysteriously formed in the center. METHOD: Begin by placing a handkerchief over the hand as shown in Figure 1. Note that end B hangs down lower than end A. Note too that end B is clipped between the third and fourth fingers. The right hand turns palm down. In the same motion end A is clipped between the first and second fingers, Figure 2. Release the third and fourth finger's grip on end B. With a sharp downward movement of your right hand, shake the handkerchief off your right wrist. The result is that a knot is tied in the center of the handkerchief, Figure 3.  With just a bit of practice the one-hand knot can be formed instantly. If you have trouble getting the handkerchief to slide off your hand, twist it rope fashion before placing it on your hand in Figure 1 (or use a rope). If the knot is formed in view of the audience, it happens so quickly that it will appear as if you shook the handkerchief and a knot mysteriously formed in the center.
Fig 1	Fig 2	Fig 3

 

COIN THROUGH HANDKERCHIEF OR NAPKIN ON TABLE

		This was one of Rosemary's favorite tricks. It comes right out of the Cub Scout Magic Book.
1. For this trick there should be a cloth on the table so that when the coin drops the sound will not be heard. The handkerchief or napkin used should NOT be the thin sort that can be seen through.  Place a coin on a napkin that is on a table.			2. Corner A is to be near the table edge near you. Take corner A and fold the handkerchief away from you, bringing A over and about an inch beyond the corner B. The coin is now covered.
	3.  With both hands take hold of the coin through the handkerchief or napkin and roll both of them away from you.			4.  When the roll is almost over to corner A, the corner B will come out on your side. Stop rolling, because B must not go over corner A.
5.Put a finger of one hand on corner A to hold it down. With thumb and finger of the other hand take corner B and draw it back slowly to your side of the table.			6. The coin has disappeared. It will be under the handkerchief. Pick this up, show the coin, and say that it was magic that made it go through.

 
 

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