Cruising with "Houdin"

I couldn't resist. John Cox over at the fantastic Houdini blog, WildaboutHoudini.com just put up a piece called "Cruising with Houdeni" and it shows an old custom plate from a car he used to have. Well, here is MY current plate. You'll notice it says "HOUDIN" not Houdini. The wonderful state of Virginia wouldn't give me the 'I', even though other plates have more than six letters. I have to laugh though because 95% of the people who notice it think it says HOUDINI. But I figure I'm just driving around with the plates for the Father of Modern Magic, Robert-Houdin!

The car is a Honda Element. I got it to replace my Van which was costing me so much in gas I wasn't making any money anymore. So the Element did great on gas....until the price went to $4.00, and now I'm almost back to where I was. Plus, I miss my van! Such is life. Oh, and John has the cooler car by far!

Auction Price for Houdini Poster

Ok, I had to stay around for the Houdini King of Cards Poster Lot 1889 which had a estimate price $800-$1200 . It just sold for $7000au, which I think is about $7221.65 US. There were other Houdini items, but they sold before I got on so I missed them. Pretty fun to watch. Go over to John Cox's website WildaboutHoudini.com for the other prices on Houdini stuff.

Max Malini Memorabilia

I was just online watching the auction from Australia for Houdini and various other magicians memorabilia. I was planning on bidding on an item listed as 'magicians clothes'. I knew they were not 'magicians clothes'. What they had there was Max Malini's clothes AND something else. But before I tell you what that something else was, let me tell you about the item before this which was a cigar holder that belonged to Malini with sold for something like $8000. CRAZY!

By the way, the lot was recently corrected to say "Max Malini's Magician's Outfit" Ok, now to the 'something else'. Amongst the items was a little cloth bag and two wooden eggs. Max Malini's egg bag was IN THAT LOT and not even LISTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A piece of cloth from Signor Blitz's egg bag sold for $2000. This lot, with Malini's pants, gloves, walking cane, shoes and his egg bag and eggs, sold for $5000. Three thousand dollars less than the cigar holder and a way bigger bargain. http://www.lawsons.com.au/asp/fullcatalogue.asp?salelot=7919A+++1863+&refno=31006282&image=0

The auction estimate was $300-$600. I was willing to bid in that range, but the auction opened at $3000. So I was out pretty quick, lol. Some of the books have been selling quite low, can't imagine what will happen with the Houdini items, the auction estimates on those are pretty low, but I imagine they'll go through the roof.