I’ve been performing the following routine for over ten years in restaurants, private parties and trade shows. After thousands of performances I can assure you that it is completely audience-tested. It was the finale to my competition act in 1981 for which I received the International Brotherhood of Magicians’ first place close-up trophy as well as the newly established Gold Cups Award.

My routine uses only two cups for three important reasons: First, I believe that two cups make the trick more interesting because a symmetry of action is created which lessens the confusion that three cups can create. Secondly, two cups take up less space on a restaurant table top. And most importantly, I lost my third cup a long time ago.

The beautiful illustrations were done by that talented Disney artist and rogue coin manipulator Greg Manwaring. They were kindly supplied by Michael Ammar who was going to include this routine in a book about the cups which got placed on one of his many back burners several years ago. So thanks to those fellers I can offer this routine to you and finally start making some BIG BUCKS.