An interesting array of Houdini’s former property was among “the Pugliese Pop Culture Collection” auctioned off in Las Vegas on March 15 and 16, 2008. Anthony Pugliese put 850 pieces of memorabilia on the block to raise money for Destiny, an “eco-sustainable community” he is developing in Florida, and the Audubon Society. Guernsey’s Auction House handled the sale. The pictures here, showing most but not all of the items, come from LiveAuctioneers.com.
What’ll you pay? A portrait in oils up for grabs, signed “De Lutis”. A similarly uninspiring painting of an Elizabethan gentleman has been on eBay, bearing the same signature but advertised speculatively as “1900s” and “British? Dutch?”. No further information about the artist seems available.
Joining the gun that Jack Ruby used to shoot Lee Oswald (no takers at $2.25 million) and sold items like Christopher Reeve’s Superman costume ($45,000), the hat worn by the Wicked Witch in “The Wizard of Oz” ($170,000) and mementoes of Elvis Presley and the Beatles were Harry’s travelling trunk, an escape crate, shackles and cuffs and a straitjacket.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the lion’s share of the Houdini memorabilia was purchased by Wayne Lensing, owner of Historic Auto Attractions, a museum of cars, movie props — and now magic — in Roscoe, Illinois.
It was Lensing who bought the prime property in the Houdini sale, the floor-length burlap straitjacket with long sleeves, a leather collar and cuffs and a three-buckle front closure shown at the top of this post, for which he paid $26,950.
The newspaper gave no details about other purchases, saying only that Lensing also bought handcuffs, arm locks and the pine crate below, used in an escape routine “in the 1910s and 1920s”, including its debut in a 1912 East River escape in New York City. “The secret to the famous packing-crate escape to be revealed upon the new owners’ request,” the auction website said without smirking.
“The crate has a removable lid and five of the original six hinges. A handle is on each end of the box, which was once brown and varnished. It shows age- and use-related wear in the form of dents, scratches and nicks, and includes an interesting graffiti at the bottom left corner. Formerly the property of the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in Niagra Falls, Canada.”
Previously at the Las Vegas Magic and Movie Hall of Fame, here’s the travelling trunk used to ship props, “painted on four vertical sides ‘glass’ in gold lettering, and on the top ‘This side up’, ‘Houdini’, ‘M-2′, ‘Theatre’.” The label on the seam identifies the manufacturer: William Bal Company.
One of Harry’s milk cans, also from the gutted Hall of Fame in Niagra Falls. “Made of a light-weight silver-coloured pot metal … a triangular top portion with hinges affixed to either side and two small air holes drilled into the top.”
By now everyone knows there’s more to it than that.
On the left, a “Chinese garotte or choker … used by the Chinese at the turn of the century for strangling. It can be tightened one notch at a time for a slow and agonising death. Houdini escaped from the choker by using a simple button hook.” This belonged to Sidney Radner, who kept his formidable collection at the Houdini Historical Centre in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Another Radner item is the “prison cell lock”, above right, with four holes for mounting on prison bars, with a rectangular lock protruding from one side, sold along with its skeleton key. “Houdini not only escaped from the cell in London,” said the website, “he also unlocked the cells of all the prisoners. The prison officials were so impressed with his escape that they removed the lock from the cell and gave it to him as a souvenir.”
A “US government-issued, black-and-white-striped canvas mail bag” from which Houdini escaped, “with leather band along the top and brass loops for cinching. Heavy soiling, holes and repair work throughout.”
Radner and Appleton also yielded this double-lock cuff on a bar.
Authenticated by Radner and Henry Muller, owner and curator of the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame, a Judd leg iron with cuffs connected by a metal chain, named after its inventor in 1904, Henry Judd.
This is a double-lock leg iron, also linked by a chain, formerly in the Niagara Hall of Fame and the Houdini-Hardeen Collection.
Metal thumb cuffs with a sliding lock mechanism.
A “slave neck band”, left, a keymaking die used to form flat keys to fit padlocks, from the Houdini Historical Centre, top right, and one of several keys from Houdini’s own collection in the auction, this one double-matted in a gilt-wood moulding and once the property of Paul Harter, a “lock and key connoisseur” who bought it from Hardeen.
Harry hauled this huge billboard around with him on the road in the 1910s and ’20s, depicting him “buried alive” in an Egyptian casket in view of the Sphinx. “The Greatest Necromancer of the Age — Perhaps of All Times”.
A mysterious letter from Harry: “Anytime you ‘desire’ my ‘locale’ ring me at #5609 and my private Secty will give you address. HH. Hope all is well. Houdini … 4:30 P.M. … ALS”.
A copy of Houdini’s 40-page pamphlet on the tricks used by Margery and the Spanish “X-ray mystic” Argamasilla. Harry has written a note to Beatrice on the front: “Advance copy — Book not on sale until October 19/24, Regards, Houdini.”
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