TLS signed “Yours as always, Houdini,” one page, trimmed to a size of 6 x 6.5, 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 full: “Glad to hear from you. 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. I will know Thursday. Mrs. Houdini joins me in sending kindest regards and best wishes.” Double cloth matted and framed, with a reproduction of a mini poster of one of Houdini’s death defying escapes, to an overall size of 23.5 x 18.25. In very good condition, with trimmed edges, intersecting folds, one through a single letter of signature, a few edge tears, some light pencil notations, and type quite light, but completely legible.
Houdini spent the last 13 years of his life in a highly publicized battle with the spiritualists. He saw spiritualistic fraud as a public menace: “To be a real minister you have to spend eight to eighteen years,” he said, “but to be a spiritualist minister you just have to say I hear voices.” Using his knowledge of illusion, Houdini duplicated the ghostly apparitions, noises and mysterious levitations produced by many mediums and their "spirits." The protest he mentions in the letter was likely a group of spiritualists angry at such actions.
In this particular case, Houdini outed “trumpet medium” George Renner when, in disguise, he planted dark soot on Renner’s “spirit trumpets” and then illuminated a flashlight to show soot stains on the medium’s hands and mouth. Since the famed magician brought a member of the press and local police with him on his medium exposures, Renner not only received free publicity but a trip to jail for taking money under false pretenses.
Houdini boasts of Renner’s exposure to T. Nelson Downs, a famous vaudeville magician regarded as the greatest coin manipulator of all time. A close friend, Downs had met great success performing in Europe and suggested that Houdini also perform abroad, which lifted the magician to international stardom. A fantastic letter to a fellow magician describing a typically inventive exposures. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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