Friday, September 16, 2011

Houdini letter on Auction Kings

Check out this clip from the Discovery Channel show, Auction Kings. This letter sounds pretty interesting, and our friend Aron Houdini does a nice job of authenticating the signature. The show airs Tuesday, September 20 at 9:00pm.

3 comments:

  1. "One of the things Houdini always done."
    If Aaron Houdini's story is true, he has at least ancestor named Frozzard that come from Yorkshire, England.
    I don't know that he could be called a great grand nephew. It sounds as if he is a second cousin many times removed--which is good enough.
    He has no blood relationship to Houdini or Hardeen but should be a blood relation of Theo and Elsie Hardeen' children and descendants.
    I believe that Aaron's own story means he is mischaracterizing his connection to Houdini--but, again, if it's real it's good enough.
    Houdini didn't almost drown making the picture Terror Island, he almost drowned while he was on location for it on Catalina Island when he tried to swim out to a boat that was caught on the rocks during a storm with four people aboard.
    The idea was to get a rope to the boat so it could be hauled in to shore. Houdini said he almost made it twice only to be slammed back into the rocks.
    He had a rope around his waist and they pulled him back to shore.
    A younger swimmer did get to the boat with a rope and the people were rescued.

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  2. I meant "Fozzard."
    As all who know me know, I do that with names.
    Wrote a review of "The Expert at the Card Table" in which I repeatedly spelled Erdnase with an "i."
    Could somebody who subscribes to ancestry.com check on Aaron's story about his relation to Houdini?
    I don't doubt his story, but, his mentioning that his Fozzard ancestor came from around Appleton kind of raised a flag.

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  3. I also question whether this letter references the Catalina mishap or something else. Houdini says he was performing "an escape before the camera." That doesn't sound like the same thing to me.

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