Thank You, David Roth!

I am reflect­ing on the mag­nif­i­cent magi­cians and peo­ple who brought all that joy to my life. With­out them, I would­n’t be what I am.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly, I would like to express my sin­cer­est thanks to Mr. David Roth. When I was a young­ster, his coin work shaped me. Now I am ‘old’ and he still shapes me 🙂

He teached me so many things, after study­ing the clas­sics like Bobo’s and so on, what ‘hip’ coin mag­ic has to look like. He showed a new world. Mr. Roth opened doors for me. That was not only inspir­ing, but break­ing all exist­ing rules.

Mr. Roth, thank you for what you have giv­en to us all. You are the undis­put­ed mod­ern mas­ter, who real­ly shaped a gen­er­a­tion.

In my upcom­ing lec­ture on mis­di­rec­tion, I will demon­strate (NOT explain!) a cer­tain thing of yours, which I con­sid­er to be just bril­liant (O.S.). Some­thing I saw, and which fooled me BADLY. I had no f*** idea. That was bril­liant. It does­n’t hap­pen often, but you fooled me. Thank you for that. That feel­ing of mag­ic again was on me …

All the young ’stars’, com­plain­ing about the way Mr. Roth per­formed on the Penn& Teller show, com­plain­ing he trem­bled a bit, etc. — keep in mind: It is still this David Roth, on whose shoul­ders we stand. The young ‘I know it all and can do it bet­ter’ gen­er­a­tion. We were the same, young and cheeky lads. Maybe also David was that way when he was young. But then — he com­plete­ly changed the way coin mag­ic was done. And most of us did not achieve that. A bit trem­bling does­n’t mat­ter so far, because it is the ideas and con­cepts, which he gave us, that count. How many do his sleights, moves and rou­tines in reg­u­lar work?

Thank you, David Roth. Thank you for what you have giv­en us. Thank you for bring­ing real­ly inno­v­a­tive think­ing to a ran­dom area of mag­ic: coin mag­ic.

I am still won­der­ing about and study­ing your mate­r­i­al. Only now with 52 years of age, I start to tru­ly under­stand some of your think­ing and stuff. And I am proud to be allowed to stand on your shoul­ders. No mat­ter what oth­er peo­ple will be there — you will always in my heart be ‘the mas­ter’ of them all. I pull my hat.

Sin­cere­ly and with deep and mutu­al respect for your work and genius. Alexan­der de Cova a ‘David Roth fan’? No — a true believ­er and fol­low­er.

Alexan­der de Cova

Pass it on!