French Drop

French Drop or Tourniquet is a sleight of hand method for making a small object, like a coin, vanish.

Figure 66 in Modern Magic

Known as a false take, one hand apparently takes a coin from the fingertips of the other hand

Originally called "tourniquet" in France, with the term "French Drop" coming into use by 1876 as seen within Modern Magic by Professor Hoffmann. It was also called "The French Vanish" in the 1941 Tarbell Course in Magic Volume One book.

Often attributed as being first described in 1584 by Reginald Scot within The Discoverie of Witchcraft, Scot's describes a coin vanish in which you retain the coin in the palm as you seem to drop it in the other hand (i.e. a false load, not a false take, as the french drop has become to be known).

Other Publications

• Le Tourniquet, Les Secrets de la prestidigitation et de la magie by Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, page 64, (1868)