Two Headed or Two Tailed Coins

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Author: Bill O'Rourke

So... You Say you found a two headed or two tailed coin? Well, Please read on!

I can practically guarantee that it is a coin called a Magician's Coin. There are two headed and two tailed coins that are made as novelty items.

The coin you have will actually come apart of you fool with it long enough. After they get placed into circulation, wear makes it very difficult to find and operate the seam but it is there.

A few ways you can check this coin is as follows:

Look at the two sides in relation to each other. They usually don't line up right. Hold the coin between your thumb and forefinger with the obverse or reverse (heads or tails) on one side perfectly straight up. Slowly spin the coin between your fingers and take note of the position of the "other" side. The other side should be positioned exactly "upside down" in relation to the first side. It will probably not line up right. We call that rotated. That is a sign that the two halves were not put back together in a normal coin orientation the last time it was taken apart and put back together.

The next test is what I like to call the "ring" test or even better, the "THUD" test. When you drop a normal half dollar, it will actually ring. Even copper-nickel clad coins will produce a musical pitch when you drop it on a hard surface.

Compare the ring of a real coin to your double tailed one. A good coin will ring and the double tailed one will go "THUD" . It will sound like you dropped a chunk of lead. The air between the layers deadens the normal ring.

In some cases, there is enough air between the sections of the coin that if you place it in water, a few minute bubbles will appear.

If you find that it is a magician's coin, you may want to fiddle with it to open it up. Sometimes one side of the piece that is on the inside now has a foreign coin used. It adds to the trick. I have some here that have British Pennies or Mexican 20 Centavos coins on the inside.

So..Try these out and feel free to let me know what you discover about your coin.

Brand new "Magician's Coins" that work are sold for between 5 and 10 dollars in Magic shops. Ones in circulation are interesting but have no numismatic value.

On the off chance that it is real (and the chance is slim) it would be worth a great deal of money to a collector. Figuratively speaking, 99.9999999999% of the time, they are not real.