Death of a Magic Trick

There are few things which continually serve to fascinate and amaze me as much as a magic trick. It's not the thought of magic that truly entrances me, but the thought and notion of the reality of the trick. How do they do that? Tonight I decided I would find out just how this magic coin bank my brother has had for the longest time worked. It's a pretty simple setup, now that I know how it works. A large box, walled on three sides, with a clear plastic cover on the fourth. The coin is slipped in the top and falls trough what appears to be an extremely thin tube into a tiny box on the bottom of the larger box. Looking through the two sets of tiny windows allows you to see the coins, just as you put them in, but really small. I knew that a distortion of light was at work here, it's impossible to shrink something like that with the setup I held in my hand. However, I was sill mystified as to how they fit the coins down the tiny tube in the first place. Looking earnestly through the first plane of plastic did not reveal any hidden mirrors. So, I decided to find out for myself. I forced open the plastic cover and discovered the set of diagonally intersecting mirrors. They reflected the walls of the box to make the tube appear thin when it was, in fact just a facade that was covering a larger chute.

Now I know, I suppose.