Saturday, March 2, 2013

Magician Statue 1

Among the many things I collect are statues of magicians. The one in the photo is a reproduction of a popular statue. I'm not sure of the originator, nor am I really sure about who did the reproductions. I just know that Bill King told me the way to spot an original versus a reproduction was the shape of the bottom of the hat. The originals had a slightly rounded bottom on the hat, whereas the reproductions have a completely flat bottom to the hat. Otherwise they are identical as far as I know.

Mine arrived unpainted, and truth be told, my first one arrived in about a thousand pieces thanks to U.P.S.. but luck was on my side and I was able to get it replaced. It arrived unfinished in an unpainted state.

I don't have any photos of it in the unpainted stage, but as you can see, I took it upon myself to paint it. I've seen several others and most of those have the magician wearing a black coat. But I wanted to give the statue a unique look so I went for browns and earthier tones.

In his left coat pocket he has a bouquet of flowers and in the right pocket are several silk scarves. There are also two cards sticking out from his vest which are difficult to see in the photo.

I'm not sure who the magician is modeled after, perhaps Charles Bertram. But I think he looks more like the actor John C. Reilly.

By the way, there is one of these statues available on ebay at the moment, though there is only 18hours left on the auction. Act fast!


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!


Thursday, February 21, 2013

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.