Harry Houdini at UDMercy?-Maybe or just his brother and only as an autograph
There was an article about a recent auction of Harry Houdini’s items in the local paper. One of the items that was talked about caught my eye: “Houdini’s Society of American Magicians membership card signed by him sold for $7,000…” (Detroit News, September 6, 2014). I knew in our autograph file we had a file on Houdini, but I did not know what was in the file. First chance I got, I had to check. Imagine my disappointment when I saw that one was a letter dated 1930-Harry Houdini died in 1926 at a Detroit hospital. So who was this Houdini? A Wikipedia search turned up a younger brother, Theodore, who went by the name Hardeen. He was also a successful magician and escape artist in his own right and would perform many of his brother’s acts after Harry died.
There is a second note in the file dated April 24, 1925–could this be a real autograph of Harry Houdini? Looks authentic and a check of various images of his autograph on the internet, it seems to have many of the same characteristics. I do not claim any expertise on the subject of autographs, but looks real to me. What do you think!
