Magic Antiques/Collectibles

[blakehensley]

Hey guys,

Last night I was watching PawnStars on the History channel. I have been watching this show for a while, but anyway. If you don't know what its about then check it out. Its pretty cool.

Anyway, a guy came in claiming that he had some feet and hand shackles that used to belong to Houdini. I thought it was pretty cool. The guy got them from a Sid Radner Auction. For those of you who do not know, Sid Radner has the biggest Houdini collection known to man, and auctions items that used to belong to Houdini.

The guy owning the store called down a Las Vegas magician by the name of Murray. They didn't say a last name, but I him up, and he is pretty cool. Anyway, along with the story. The shackles turned out to be real and were previously owned by Houdini. They could sell for about eight to ten thousand dollars at the Sid Radner auction. The guy sold them for five. I personally would have kept them. But then again I practice the art of magic, and having a piece of history from the worlds greatest entertainer/magician that would be pretty cool.

The question of this thread is, "What collectibles or "old" magic items do you have?"

I have some old magazines from the 30's-2009.

some names are:
- MUM
- The Linking Ring
- Tops (this is abbots old magazine)

and a couple different kinds of magiazines. But I probably have a total of around one-hundred or so magazines.

So, what do you guys have?


-blake.

 

[William Draven]

just to toss in my two cents... murray's last name is sawchuck and competed against dan sperry on americas got talent this past season
my biggest collectible is probably my magic castle tour book with a lot of autographs including one from carl ballentine.

 

[blakehensley]

Awesome Draven,

Thanks for adding. Yeah, when I saw Murray, I thought he kinda had the same vibe as Dan. I still like Dan though. But I havent seen much of Murray's work.

 

[mehar]

Adding another thing about Murray... he's from Victoria B.C. and I'm pretty sure he owns a magic store down their!

 

[Craig Browning]

Any true Antique pro would know that Murry ain't an antique specialists when it comes to magic and Kevin James would have been his better bet or Gary Darwin or for that matter Johnny Thompson. . . and that's just in Vegas.

You can find cuffs & shackles used by Houdini all over the planet because the old conman encouraged people to make their own and bring them in, it's still a common PR bit of business for escape artists. The catch is, there are only a limited number of said items that went with Harry or Theo whenever they did a show. Most of those items were recently sold off by Sid Radner, who owned the majority of the original equipment for decades. Ed Fowler/Carlyle owned some items because his father worked for Harry as did a non-magician and Pawn shop owner in Ohio named Max Shell who was there the night things went bad in Detriot. These are the manacles and devices that are actually worth something and as I said, very little of it isn't kept track of. . . at least to my knowledge.

There are forums for magic collectors, I've been out of that world for decades now, but Joe Stevens (Stevens Magic Emporium) is just one of the more noted members along with Dr. Albo, and Mike Caveney

 

[William Draven]

also don't forget about Roger Dryer. He's another big collector

 

[Magic Newswire]

I had heard that murray was going to appear on the show, but totally forgotten to mention it anywhere. Interesting to hear the context. I'll look for a video