TRIVIA: Anyone know how the twins are related to Houdini besides the fact that they share the same birthday?

Come back on Sunday 3/27, where I share a newspaper with the answer and more.

I recently procured a copy of Oct 2005 Weird N.J. Magazine, that had an interesting article written by Robert H. Popper Jr about a building once owned by Houdini.

Below are some of the nuggets we learn about the building from the article:

• Julius S. Popper purchased the building from Houdini’s Estate in December 1926.
• The interior of the building was configured for processing of movie film.
• It was divided into many small light-tight laboratories, each containing a different chemical bath through which the film passed in sequence.
  • Julius removed all this and installed metal working equipment.
• There was a dead-end corridor in the rear of the first floor, about eight feet wide and fifteen feet long. It had no windows and the only entry was at one end where one had to pass through two doors in succession. The width and height of each door was the same as the width and height of the corridor. Either door alone would have been sufficient to seal off the corridor, but Houdini used both, one after the other. One was hinged on the left wall of the corridor, and the other on the right. In the chamber created by these double barriers he practiced his escapes.
  • Both doors were removed when the building was reconfigured for manufacturing.
• The building came with stacks of Houdini’s publicity materials, posters, billboards, fliers, etc.
  • Julius used to wrap shipments until his company, J.S. Popper, Inc, started to become known as “The Houdini Company”.
• The building had a hidden vault in the basement.

Today, I share some Houdini Collectible Phone Cards and some corresponding ads.

Joe Fox Collection

In 1995, these 6 Color Canadian Phone cards were offered by CardCaller(TM). They also offered two (portrait and chains) in black & white.

December 1995 MAGIC magazine

In 1997, the Houdini Historical Center offered four sets of prepaid phone calls.

Set 2 was due out in June, Set 3 in September, and Set 4 in December.

But as far as I know, they only ever shipped the first set.

Special thanks to Joe Fox for sharing the Canadian Phone Cards and corresponding ad.

Credit: Henning Book

Harry Houdini commissioned Frederick Bushnell’s studio photography company to take semi-nude photos of him as he reenacted a San Francisco escape.

A pitchbook (above) and an Ebay auction (above) dates these images as July,1899.

A museum quality photo reproduction of the Ebay auction image with the Bushnell San Francisco logo in the lower right has been meticulously hand mounted on a collectible cabinet card reproduction (above) available from Fantasma Magic.

HHCE Collection

And last but not least, there is an undated cabinet card (above) from the Newark Photographer, J Rennie Smith, with the infamous photo of Houdini holding up handcuffs affixed to it. I acquired it from someone that deals in old postcards. Note: The photo does not have any logo on it, only the cabinet card.

J Rennie Smith was an active Newark photographer from 1868 thru the 1890s. He died October 4, 1905.

Ashbury Park Press 05 Oct 1905

Houdini ‘s first performance in Newark was April 23, 1906, where he escaped a jail at the Newark police headquarters, so…

Thoughts on a date for the cabinet card from Newark?

Update:
A cropped B&W image (with a snippet of Bushnell logo) first appeared in Mahatma Vol 3 No. 7 New York, Brooklyn Borough , January 1900 magazine. Patrick Culliton’s ‘Tao of Houdini’ book has a B&W image that closely matches the albumen print on my cabinet card; and while you can’t see it in the book, the original in Kevin Conolly’s collection appears to have a faint Bushnell logo. My albumen print may have lost this Bushnell logo highlight detail over time.

I became a member of the Houdini Historical Center in 1995 and was fortunate enough to visit the Houdini Historical Center Museum in Appleton Wisconsin in 1998, where I picked up some of the many items found in their catalog.

Thought it would be fun to share pages from the catalog over a series of posts, along with the catalog items in my collection.  We previously looked at Pages 1 and 2. Today we look at Page 3.

Catalog items in HHCE Collection:

Last year John Cox at Wild About Houdini did an excellent deep dive post on the King of Cards Poster and its reproductions:

• Everyone’s first Houdini poster

That led me to search for and eventually find for my collection, the extremely rare 1961 (first reproduction) King of Cards poster by Tommy Windsor.

The poster came folded up into an insurance policy,

along with Tommy Windsor’s Patter for an effect,

And 12 ways to use the Houdini Posters.