TLS signed “Yours as always, Houdini,” one page, 6 x 7, March 31, 1925. Houdini writes to T. Nelson Downs, fellow magician and the “King of Coins,” while at the B. F. Keith’s Theatre in Cincinnati. In part, “The enclosed clipping of the protest meeting will no doubt interest you, especially in view of the fact that the meeting was called a day after I left Cleveland. Did you get the papers of how I caught George Renner, the trumpet medium of forty years standing? He had the reputation of never having been detected of fraud, and I walked into his seance room feeling confident that I had found a genuine medium. The jury found him guilty with the first ballot, but he is liable to get another trial.” Houdini spent the last 13 years of his life in a highly publicized battle with the spiritualists. Using his knowledge of illusion, Houdini was able to duplicate the ghostly apparitions, noises and mysterious levitations produced by the working mediums and their "spirits." His "exposures" became so popular with his audiences that they took up more than a third of his regular program. Houdini outed Renner when he had Houdini (in disguise) plant dark soot around the spirit trumpets, and illuminate a flashlight to present soot stains on Renner’s hands and mouth. Double suede matted and framed with a color mini poster of one of Houdini’s death defying escapes, to an overall size of 24 x 18.5. Trimmed in size and in very good condition, with mailing folds, small tear and spot to top left, light notations, and the type quite light but completely readable. COA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
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