David Roth

David Roth (b.1952, New York) is an American magician.

David Roth is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest living coin magicians. Roth is known both for tremendous technical mastery and for playful and surrealistic formal performance pieces. Roth was an important contributor to Richard Kaufman's "Coinmagic," a widely regarded text on contemporary coin technique; his major work was chronicled in "David Roth's Expert Coin Magic," a massive hardcover tome also penned by Richard Kaufman; Mr. Roth has lectured for magic enthusiasts around the world and has produced numerous instructional videos. Mr. Roth is now associated with Fantasma magic, a magic manufacturing and retail company in New York City.

The legendary sleight of hand artist Dai Vernon, wrote about Roth:

"First let me state that David Roth has an amazing ability when performing with coins. He is truly a genius. I have been fortunate to have enjoyed the confidence and friendship of the leading exponents of coin manipulation of the past. T. Nelson Downs, Allan Shaw, Manuel and Welch Miller all specialized in this branch of the magical art. To the very best of my judgment, David’s ideas and execution far surpass any one of them. I feel quite certain that if they could witness his performance they would not only be astounded but realize that they had seen the master."

Major Technical Contributions

Mr. Roth's trick "The Hanging Coins" (which was first revealed in Apocalypse magazine, Volume 1, No. 6, page 68, 1978) took an ancient, and long ignored, sleight of hand technique and made it far more deceptive and useful. This technique, which Roth dubbed "Edge Grip," has subsequently been explored in depth by other experts in the field. It is a significant tool of contemporary coin magic

Mr. Roth's virtuoso execution of a "persistence of vision vanish" led to tremendous interest in his handling of the move (which he refers to "The Retention Vanish"), and - perhaps - to increased use of this move among magicians.

Mr. Roth's handling and application of a technique that has - largely thanks to him - become known as "The Shuttle Pass" is highly influential.

Mr. Roth's "The Original Chinese Coin Assembly" was highly influential as the first published coin assembly that used the bare hands. This was a highly influential development that has been widely used and explored by other sleight of hand experts.

He has a sister, Lisa Roth, who is a graphic artist based in San Francisco.

Literary works

• David Roth's Expert Coin Magic

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