Egg on Card Fan

Published in Smoke & Mirrors E-Zine

This is my version of the classic Egg on Fan trick. This was among the first tricks I ever performed in public, and it quickly grew into one of my pet routines. As far as I know, the egg switch is original by me. This routine sure entertains people and it fools a lot of magicians too. I use this when I feel the Toilet Paper to Egg (described in my first book, Pocket Power) could be inappropriate.

Effect

You make a double card fan and put some crumpled tissue paper on it. When you bounce it on the fan, the paper grows slowly and visibly into a real egg that you break in a glass.

You need a real egg, a hollow rubber egg like the Rubber Chicken Egg, a lighter, a deck of cards, a glass to break the egg in and some tissue paper. Place the folded rubber egg together with some tissue paper on your table. Also on the table you must have an empty glass. The egg is in your right jacket pocket, and the lighter in your right trouser pocket.

Throw away one card from the deck, and it will have an uneven number of cards. You will find that this prevents loosing cards as you make the double fan, because the top and bottom cards will be at the same end. And that’s the end you should be holding... Making a double card fan is easy if you use a Stripper Deck and turn every other card the opposite way. This allows you to just pull the two interlaced halves partly away from each other until they overlap by 3 centimeters (about 1,2 inches). Treating the cards with Fanning Powder (Zinc Stearate) will greatly improve the quality and evenness of the fan.

If you don’t want to use a stripper deck you will have to learn how to do a decent faro shuffle. If you don’t just use an ordinary handheld “non-card” fan, that is. You must learn how to break the egg one-handedly in an effortless manner. Practice this by making a few omelets. Imagine tax deductive omelet!

Performance

OK, now for the performance. Make the best double card fan you can, or just open the non-card fan if you choose the easy way. The spectators will be amazed by your skills! With the fan in your left hand, take a piece of tissue paper in your right hand, secretly grabbing the rubber egg as well. While you crumple up the paper, work the rubber gimmick towards your fingertips, and get the paper into finger palm. End up displaying the folded egg, as if it were the paper, between your outstretched first finger and thumb, hiding the paper behind your curled second, third and fourth fingers.(Fig.1)

Fig.1

Place the folded rubber egg on the card fan, and hold it in place with your left thumb so it doesn’t start to grow. Now go to the right trouser pocket with the paper in finger palm. Leave the paper, take out the lighter and hold the flame under the card fan for a while.

Here comes the part you have to practice: You must now bounce the rubber egg (which they believe is the paper) on the double card fan without dropping it on the floor. If it drops, it will not behave like paper, and not like an egg either... If you follow the egg’s movement up and down with the card fan, it will not bounce too wildly. There’s a knack to it, and after a few minutes of toying with this, you will get it. It’s more a matter of throwing it up in the air and catching it again and again, than really bouncing it. You must have control over the egg before you leave it air borne again. Pressing down on the fan with your left thumb will cause the fan to become a little concave, making the “bouncing” easier.

If you thought that was difficult, then listen up: Now you have to steal the real egg out of your pocket while still bouncing the rubber egg! Still bouncing, and looking at the bouncing “paper”, you put your right hand in the right jacket pocket and leave the lighter as you bring out the egg and straighten your lapel. The exact technique I use is “The Simplest Steal of them All” from my book Pocket Power. The steal really is totally undetectable if performed correctly, because the movement is so natural. The straightening of the lapel is what makes the steal look so good, so please don’t skip that!

When you’ve got the egg in finger palm, stop bouncing (the rubber egg should be fully inflated by now) making sure that the gimmick stops close to your left thumb, and pretend to roll the egg off the fan and into your right hand. What really happens is that behind the fan you press the real egg against the rubber egg with your right hand, causing the air to go out of the gimmick and you grab the rubber with your left thumb. (Fig.2)

Fig.2

You turn the card fan towards your body, hiding the gimmick from their view. Your right hand then goes up to shoulder height with the egg held between the thumb and first finger. This will display as much of the egg as possible, and show that your hand is otherwise empty. Your eyes should follow the egg.

Now you hold the egg high as you put away the card fan with the gimmick on the table to your right. The gimmick is easily hidden behind the cards. Pick up the glass with your left hand, break the egg and put the contents in the glass. The audience goes wild! Use more tissue paper to clean your hands.

If you want to make your own egg gimmick, you can use this method: Soak a normal egg (a duck's egg is best) in vinegar (after emptying out its contents by blowing through a small hole) for a few hours. This will dissolve the hard shell, and you're left with a skin egg. You will have to keep this in glycerin to keep it from drying out, and you must let it dry before each performance. An egg like this will last for about 5-10 performances, but a Rubber Chicken Egg will last for hundreds and hundreds of performances. And it's a lot less troublesome to use.

If you want to buy a Rubber Chicken Egg, then go to the order form. The gimmick can also be used for Toilet Paper to Egg and Rose Petal to Egg, and you will get explanations for those tricks too if you buy the egg. 

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This trick is taken from More Pocket Power, my second book on pockets. If you like this routine, be sure to check that book out.