I was just listening to an old radio play called The Vanishing Shells starring Sydney Greenstreet and it made me think that making the shells vanish at the end of a Shell Game act, as if to get rid of the evidence, might not be a bad idea.

@tommy, how about producing three different colored peas from under the shells?

Vanishing the shells (as magical effect) might not be so easy without a devil's hank (working surface?) or fuss.

I am only an amateur card guy John: I could perhaps perform the three-card trick and vanish the cards.