The Famous Cups and Balls, Children Classic Magic

Classic magic tricks are those that pass the test of time. They fool people today just as much as they fooled people when they first saw the light of day. The next two tricks can justifiably be called "classics".

When we look through the magical archives, we find that earliest known magician was called Dedi. He lives 2,500 years ago in Egypt and it is reported that he was extremely fat. He would binge on 500 loaves of bread and a shoulder of beef and drink about 100 pints of beer every day. The cups and Balls is a version of one of his tricks and is just as good today as it was all those years ago.

What You Need

Three cups. Four coloured balls.

Important

Four balls are used in this trick although the spectators think that you are using only three. This is our secret (1).

Preparation

We will call the three cups A, B, and C. Stack the cups together after secretly loading a ball in the centre cup, B. The other three balls are in cup A.

What You Do

Lift up all three cups together and pour the three balls out onto the table.

Pull off cup C with your right hand (2), turn it over, and place it smartly onto the table - mouth downwards (3).

Pull off cup B and place this mouth downwards next to cup C (4). Keep the mouth of the cup pointed away from the spectators. If you do it smartly enough, you will be able to do this without the secret ball that it contains being seen. Turn cup A over and place that next to the other two (5)

Place a ball in front of each cup. Put the ball that is in front of cup B on top of it (6). Cover it with cups C and A (7). Tap the top (8) and lift up the stack of cups to show that (apparently) the ball that you placed on top of cup B has penetrated the cup and now rests upon the surface of the table (9).

Lay the three cups out again with cup C (which has a ball in it) going over the ball that has just appeared in the middle of the table. There are now two balls under the centre cup and one in front of each of the others (10-13).

Place one of the visible balls on top of the centre cup (14) and cover it with cups B and A (15). Tap the top and lift the cups to show that there are now two balls lying beneath the stack (16).

Again reset the cups on the table with the centre cup going over the two balls that have apparently penetrated the cup (17).

There are now three balls under the centre cup, although the audience will only be aware of two. Place the last visible ball on top of the centre cup (18) and assemble your stack all over again (19).