U.F. Grant's Impossible Bill in Lemon
by Devin Knight

An impossible bill to lemon that will leave your audience and many magicians wondering how such a thing is possible. That's because it is another lost secret from the mind of U. F. Grant. Read every word, the description is 100% true and sounds impossible. The performer asks to borrow a dollar bill from anyone. This person is not a stooge and the bill has not been planted in the audience as a preshow bit. Any bill, from any person, plain and simple. BEFORE the performer touches the bill, he has the spectator write down the serial number for later verification. The performer still does not touch the bill, but invites the spectator to take his bill to the front performance area. Remember, the spectator writes down the serial number. The magician does not take the bill and read it off. There is NO miscalling the serial number as in other methods. The spectator writes down the real serial number that is on his bill. There is positively no switch of the bill. That person takes his bill to the front performance area. Not the magician.

The performer invites a lady to come forward, she is not a stooge. She is given a choice of two lemons and chooses one. She is asked to take a black marker and put her initials on it so it can't be switched. She holds the lemon in her hand. For the first time, the performer takes the borrowed bill, he asked the lady to remove the small sticky brand label from the lemon. He sticks the label to the bill as an additional way of marking the bill. Again, the bill is NOT switched. It is the actual borrowed bill. The performer folds the bill into a small packet and places it under an ungimmicked handkerchief. The owner holds onto the bill through the cloth. The performer says the bill will vanish from under the cloth and appear inside of the chosen and marked lemon that has been in full view.

The performer gestures at the handkerchief, but nothing has happened. The owner says he still has the bill in his hands. The performer has the owner open out the handkerchief; his bill has vanished. Instead a note is found that says: IOU $1.00 much to the amusement of the audience. The performer shows his hands completely empty, they really are. He picks up a knife and takes the marked lemon, showing it on all sides to be free of any holes or openings. Cutting through the middle of the lemon, he lifts off the upper half showing a rolled-up dollar bill inside. He says he doesn't want to touch the bill. He has the lady remove the bill and unroll it. He asked if there is a label on the bill marking it, sure enough there is. The serial number written down is checked against the serial number of the bill. It is the same bill!

• no thumb tips
• no secret openings in the lemon
• the knife is ungimmicked and is not used to load a bill
• no duplicate bills
• no erasing or changing serial numbers
• no bill switches
• no miscalling the serial numbers

1st edition 2016, 13 pages.
word count: 3317 which is equivalent to 13 standard pages of text