Effect and Handling

The magician brings out an old hunting case pocket watch. The magician explains that the watch belonged to his grandfather, but unfortunately the watch stopped working about the same time grandfather did.

General Case Design

He opens the front of the case to show the porcelain dial, and  then  the  back  of  the watch showing the beautiful tooling and workmanship of the early craftsmen.  In the days before Radio and TV, people would sit around in the parlor and play games.  One of the games grandfather would play with the children was to take out his pocket watch, pull the stem out to the setting position, and while gently holding the cover closed with his thumb,   he  would  turn  the  stem  several times to a random  time  setting.  The   children  would  then  take  turns  guessing a time.  When grandfather opened his watch back up, the child closest to the time on the watch would win.

Arabic or Roman Numbers

Tooling on Mechanism

Magician  then demonstrates  this  process and has  several people in the audience try to guess the correct  time.  The watch is then handed to a spectator  who is  invited  to close the cover and  turn the stem  as many times as he would like, until he is satisfied that there is truly a random setting on the watch.  The magician will then correctly guess the time to the minute.  The effect  may be repeated over and over with different people handling the watch, yet the magician is always able to predict the correct time.  The prediction can be written down and placed in an envelope, or produced by some other means.  A  simple code, memorized by the magician, allows him to perform  this up to 72 times without repeating the same time.

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