We were recently fortunate enough to be able to attend the Houdiniana auction orchestrated by Potter and Potter in Chicago (the entire catalog is available here in PDF form).
Among the thousands of Houdini-related antique books, posters, photographs, props and other items was one piece of particular interest to ghost racket aficionados; Harry Houdini’s personal scrapbook of his ongoing battle with fake spiritualists.
The large, 125-page leather-bound scrapbook was unknown to Houdini buffs until it was discovered in California during 2013. It contains many hundreds of clippings from American, British and other newspapers and magazines, most of them dating from 1925 and the great majority concerning the exploits of (mostly then-) famous spiritualists. Other clippings detailing Houdini’s own exposés of psychic fakery; Houdini also wrote numerous notes in the margins.
To learn much more about this amazing artefact from the annals of the ghost racket, check out this post by John Cox – the editor of the fabulous Wild About Houdini blog – detailing how he was able to help authenticate the scrapbook shortly after it was first discovered by a California antique dealer.