This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/23/2019
Houdini, Harry (Ehrich Weisz). Houdini Bradford Palace Challenge Program. Bradford: Berry & Co., 1901. Oversize tri-fold theatre program with two full-panel advertisements for the upcoming appearance of Houdini. Each bearing a separate portrait of the “King of Handcuffs,” the balance of the pages filled with a lengthy and fascinating $5,000 challenge posed by Houdini to “so-called Fake Exposures and Mediocre Magicians, who claim to do my act because they possess a lot of false keys and springs.” Each panel 5 1/8 x 11”. Wear and chips at folds, but overall very good. Rare. The terms of Houdini’s challenge to other escape artists are as strenuous as they are fascinating; he specifies that “each competitor is allows a physician and a mechanic” and that the challenger is to “strip stark naked, be thoroughly searched, mouth sewed and sealed up, making it impossible to conceal keys, springs, or lick pickers…”