Escaping the Ordinary: Houdini Memorabilia enchants Collectors
Houdini memorabilia stole the show at a recent sale by Potter & Potter Auctions. The most appealing lots were the ones that offered a peek behind the curtain.
Image courtesy of Potter & Potter Auctions.
Stage magicians’ props and memorabilia continue to enchant collectors, and escape artist Harry Houdini remains one of the greatest names of all time. A recent sale of Houdiniana & Magic Memorabilia by Potter & Potter Auctions on April 26 kept the show going with rare items selling at high prices. The auction house’s selection of highlights, chosen before the sale, turned out to be predictions worthy of a psychic—except that the estimates often proved low.
Collectors of Houdiniana find the magician himself, born Erik Weisz in 1874 (or, more accurately, Weisz Erik, to use the name order of his native Budapest), as interesting as any of his onstage feats. Auction highlights included photographs of Houdini with family members. Lot number 1, a candid photo of Houdini with his family, sold for $9,600, smashing its presale estimate of $3,000-6,000. The rare image, believed to be unpublished, is one of the few known pictures of Houdini with his mother, Cecelia Steiner Weiss. Also pictured are his wife, Beatrice, and his four brothers, Nat, Leo, Bill, and Theo, the last of whom was also a magician and performed as “Hardeen, brother of Houdini.”
Another photo of Houdini, this one with his wife, sold for $6,000, an astounding five times its high estimate of $1,200. It is a staged portrait, with Beatrice’s arms around her husband’s shoulders, looking into the camera and smiling.
This isn’t to say that items related to Houdini’s stage shows command less interest or lower prices. In 1925, the Gimbel Brothers firm issued a framed letterpress notice of a challenge to Houdini, offering to make a packing case “that you will be unable to escape therefrom.” This case sold for $9,600, over ten times its high estimate of $900.
While Houdini received top billing, he wasn’t the only magician whose memorabilia conjured up high prices. A trick mirror called “La Glace Liquide” from contemporary magic collector and prop maker Richard Gerlitz sold for $4,800, nearly doubling its high estimate of $2,500. It is used for a trick involving a silk handkerchief that appears to sink into the surface of the Art Nouveau-style mirror and vanish as if the glass were liquid.
Plenty of colorful posters promoted magic acts in the early 20th century. Most of them carry an air of danger or mystique, with pictures of supernatural figures or death-defying stunts. An especially dramatic and uncommon poster promoting magician Howard Thurston, with a color lithograph showing him firing a gun at a figure in a cabinet suspended above the stage, doubled its presale estimate of $2,500 to sell for $5,040.
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