Last week, I shared all of the known Birmingham “Tatler Cuff” images to date. Today, I thought I would share an article on the Birmingham “Man” who claims to have invented a Handcuff With a Lock Which Cannot Be Picked. The below article appeared in The Daily Illustrated Mirror, March 11th, 1904:
I found it interesting the Birmingham blacksmith’s theory on Houdini’s methods for picking handcuffs and how those methods wouldn’t work on his invention with a lock that cannot be picked.
“Experts like Houdini…” That’s smells like a set up. Wasn’t Hart a fictional character that nobody ever located?
The existence of Nathaniel Hart has been debated quite a bit.
Per Ian McColl, no real records can be found, he wasn’t at the challenge (no apology or reason given) and research into some other challengers for different escapes have failed to put real people names and addresses as cited.
Paul Davis found a Nathanial Hunt that could be our man: Marrying into, and living with, the Squire and Pinson locksmith families; If the interview with Hunt (Hart) got his name wrong it may have been perpetuated.
And Mick Hanzlik before he passed in 2015 believed he did exist:
Houdini, Tom Froggatt and Nathanial Hart
Hart spent dedicated something like five years to make those cuffs unbeatable, and yet didn’t show up to the challenge. An indication that he was fabricated. In this day and age with the Internet, HH would have never been able to get away with that. Makes me wonder what other challenges were set up. HH gave us a clue when he said it’s not what the public saw, it’s what they THINK they saw that matters.
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