Lately, we have seen a number of these cards for sale. I have seen them sell anywhere from $67.66 to $400 and I have seen them listed as high as $1,499.99 on eBay. Check out Kevin Connolly’s blog (Buy Me Now Before I Cost $3000) and the comments section for a discussion we had regarding price, condition, and grading.
Now, let’s focus on the card itself. The card with Houdini was number 4 of a set of 24 famous heroes that was issued in England by Boys Cinema as an insert in their magazine March 25th, 1922. It measures 2 1/16″ x 3 1/16″.
The image on the front is from still 298-63 of the Grim Game.
The bottom of the front of the card only lists Artcraft as opposed to Paramount-Artcraft; Paramount and Artcraft Motion pictures were part of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation; In January 1918 Artcraft became a subsidiary of Paramount and in 1921, Paramount was part of a Federal monopoly investigation that caused Artcraft to be closed.
Now for the image on the back, it shows his birthplace as Appleton, Wisconsin which is not at all surprising. But what is surprising is that “Deep Sea Loot” is listed as chief among his films. So what was Deep Sea Loot?
During the 1910s, Houdini worked with underwater filmmakers J.E. and Ernest Williamson on a never-completed film (prospectively titled Houdini and the Miracle) that promised to show Houdini’s escape from a photosphere (an observation chamber that housed a camera that was attached to the bottom of a barge by a long tube). This film project was included in Houdini’s typewritten list of screen credits as Deep Sea Loot but was never made. [Disappearing Tricks by Matthew Solomon, pages 95, 98-99]
See the Movie Picture World, April 28, 1917, “Houdini For Pictures” article on page 622 and John Cox’s blog (Houdini’s Underwater Epic that wasn’t ) for more details on this Deep Sea Thrill.
And below is page 642 of the November 1919 issue.
