Posted by Ian on 2009-05-09
in Celebrity
The Magic Circle is holding an auction at the end of this month. The bad news is that there are no Houdini items for sale.
Yes, if you want to publicise a magic auction these days then you just have to mention Houdini - if you want a chance of generating some serious interest. Otherwise there’s a danger it will descend into the category of also-rans.
To see how seriously Houdini is taken, a few years ago the famous American auction house, Swann, decided to have an annual magic auction: it was no mere coincidence that the date chosen coincided with the anniversary of Harry Houdini’s death.
The first one was held in October 1998 and consisted of the collection of Milbourne Christopher, who had written a biography of Harry Houdini called Houdini, The Untold Story. There was no competition for the highest price at that sale - $36,800 for an original typescript of Houdini’s last book (the next highest was $14,950, another Houdini book).
Taking a random year, 2001, another inscribed Houdini book fetched by far the highest price realised in the Swann auction: $17,250. The year after Houdini’s autographed diary for the year 1916 went for $41,400, just beating a first edition of The Whole Art of Legerdemain by Henry Dean, written in1722 ($39,100).
From October 2005 to 2007, Swann held three auctions selling off the magic collection of a famous French collector called Christian Fechner. Three Houdini posters alone generated $216,000. One of the posters that went for $78,000 had fetched $8,250 back in May 1990: not a bad investment by anybody’s books.
The latest Swann auction was a much lower key affair in comparison. However highest price fetched was inevitably for something belonging to Houdini – a pair of his handcuffs which went for a mere $4,500.
It’s hard of course to compete with professional auctioneers but others have attempted to do so. Jay Marshall was a well very well known magician and magic dealer and, by all accounts, a great hoarder.
The final third of his collection has just been auctioned (April 2009) – with the emphasis again on Houdiniana (a new word that seems to have been coined especially for Houdini memorabilia). Top price was for a signed Houdini lithograph of $6,000 (well, it was only a fragment).
Are the prices worth paying? Personally I’m sceptical. To begin with there is plenty of Houdini material around; furthermore he was very liberal with his signature so an inscribed Houdini book isn’t that rare; and finally sometimes one might question the provenance. In 1999 a collection of padlocks and keys “created from Houdini’s actual artefacts” sold for $63,000. Okay, the display was used in the 1953 Houdini film starring Tony Curtis but even so...
However, devoid of anything even remotely connected with Houdini, I’m not sure if I hold out much hope for The Magic Circle auction competing. The best they can do is a David Devant poster.
Personally I would rather have a David Devant poster than a Houdini one for a number of reasons. They are much rarer, Devant was a British magician, he was also the first President of The Magic Circle and was, by all accounts, one of the greats of magic. The estimate for this poster however is a mere £2,000 (although admittedly it’s in poor condition).
Now if they had said Houdini had seen Devant perform...
Yes, if you want to publicise a magic auction these days then you just have to mention Houdini - if you want a chance of generating some serious interest. Otherwise there’s a danger it will descend into the category of also-rans.
To see how seriously Houdini is taken, a few years ago the famous American auction house, Swann, decided to have an annual magic auction: it was no mere coincidence that the date chosen coincided with the anniversary of Harry Houdini’s death.
The first one was held in October 1998 and consisted of the collection of Milbourne Christopher, who had written a biography of Harry Houdini called Houdini, The Untold Story. There was no competition for the highest price at that sale - $36,800 for an original typescript of Houdini’s last book (the next highest was $14,950, another Houdini book).
Taking a random year, 2001, another inscribed Houdini book fetched by far the highest price realised in the Swann auction: $17,250. The year after Houdini’s autographed diary for the year 1916 went for $41,400, just beating a first edition of The Whole Art of Legerdemain by Henry Dean, written in1722 ($39,100).
From October 2005 to 2007, Swann held three auctions selling off the magic collection of a famous French collector called Christian Fechner. Three Houdini posters alone generated $216,000. One of the posters that went for $78,000 had fetched $8,250 back in May 1990: not a bad investment by anybody’s books.
The latest Swann auction was a much lower key affair in comparison. However highest price fetched was inevitably for something belonging to Houdini – a pair of his handcuffs which went for a mere $4,500.
It’s hard of course to compete with professional auctioneers but others have attempted to do so. Jay Marshall was a well very well known magician and magic dealer and, by all accounts, a great hoarder.
The final third of his collection has just been auctioned (April 2009) – with the emphasis again on Houdiniana (a new word that seems to have been coined especially for Houdini memorabilia). Top price was for a signed Houdini lithograph of $6,000 (well, it was only a fragment).
Are the prices worth paying? Personally I’m sceptical. To begin with there is plenty of Houdini material around; furthermore he was very liberal with his signature so an inscribed Houdini book isn’t that rare; and finally sometimes one might question the provenance. In 1999 a collection of padlocks and keys “created from Houdini’s actual artefacts” sold for $63,000. Okay, the display was used in the 1953 Houdini film starring Tony Curtis but even so...
However, devoid of anything even remotely connected with Houdini, I’m not sure if I hold out much hope for The Magic Circle auction competing. The best they can do is a David Devant poster.
Personally I would rather have a David Devant poster than a Houdini one for a number of reasons. They are much rarer, Devant was a British magician, he was also the first President of The Magic Circle and was, by all accounts, one of the greats of magic. The estimate for this poster however is a mere £2,000 (although admittedly it’s in poor condition).
Now if they had said Houdini had seen Devant perform...
