Simon asks: ‘I carry around a Sharpie pen and wanted to know which are the best magic tricks I can learn that use a pen?’Magicians love to do magic tricks with a pen. Find a magician, shake him or her upside down and it’s highly likely several Sharpie pens will fall out onto the floor. However, apart from having a spectator sign playing cards, many magicians don’t know many magic tricks that use a pen. Why not use the pen and make it part of your act? Turn it into a prop. Let’s look at some of the best magic tricks to learn with a pen.
The simplest way to incorporate a pen into the magic tricks you already perform is to use a pen as a magic wand. It’s a basic idea that genuinely works. The spectators can immediately relate to this action. Using a pen as a wand encourages them to use their imagination and it gets them involved if you have them wave the pen for you.
If your looking for magic tricks to learn with a standard pen, we recommend ‘Recap’ by the brilliant magician Gregory Wilson. It is a multi phased routine using basic sleight of hand and brilliant misdirection. Recap can be performed with any pen that has a cap. It can be found on his magic DVD – On the Spot. Recap is also included in the excellent book by Paul Harris ‘The Art of Astonishment’ volume 1.
If your looking for gimmicked magic tricks that use a pen or gimmicked pens, there are many good ones on the market. Again, knowing which are good and which are not is hard to tell. Below is a list of our favorites that will easily fit into any working magicians repertoire.
Pen through anything is one of those fabulous visual magic tricks that can be seamlessly fitted into most magic acts.
Sharpie Through Card is like a cigarette through coin but using a Sharpie and Card to perform super strong visual magic. Cigarette magic is out of fashion, so using a pen and card instead is a great way to adapt the magic trick to be socially acceptable. Smudged is another fantastic visual piece of magic using the printing on a sharpie marker.
Sharp Impression takes printing magic tricks with a Sharpie to another level with a built in a device that reveals a blister revelation.
If your looking for magic tricks to learn that are more mind related, Captive ticks the box.
Finally, if you wish to use your standard pen throughout the routine and then have the pen transform in the spectators hands as a finale, Omni Pen provides an excellent solution.
