At the end of this podcast, Charles mentions that I might have the answer to his "mystery photo." While I'm still not 100%, I will share my info on page 444 of my upcoming book, Handcuff King: The Conquests of Harry Houdini, 1900–1909, along with the original glass negative in the Jessica Jane Peterson collection.
You can buy Exposing Houdini at ioniasecrets.com.
Another great podcast from Dean! The bank vault was the perfect place to store those delicate glass negatives, dark and climate controlled. I wonder if the person who put them in there knew that.
ReplyDeleteLeo - Yes. Dean did an excellent job. He was preparation with pre-taping work was great.
DeleteAs for storing the delicate glass negatives, a safe-deposit box is a great place to put them. However, the slides should be enveloped in archival material and they should be place standing up, not flat.
Here's information from the National Archives on how to handle and store gpn. https://www.archives.gov/preservation/storage/glass-plate-negatives.html
Really a bunch of bunk! Ask Don Greenberg for the REAL story.
ReplyDeleteDear anonymous, if you would share your name, your statements might have some worth. I have directly reached out to Don Greenberg more than a dozen times. I have requested to people who have spoken with him that he contact me. He has chosen not to do so. He was at a convention with me, shared a bus with me, and was within feet of me, yet he never bothered to approach me. It was only after Bill Smith's Magic Expo in New Jersey that I learned about him. I had never met him or heard of him before. If there is another story, I'd like to hear it.
DeleteThe observations on the historical importance/value of letters/correspondence from those from the past and the loss of that over the years to this digital age is are notable with concerns for documenting the future.
ReplyDeleteAs long as you own what is being posted or crediting the owner(s). Neither done with that book.
ReplyDeleteExposing Houdini might suffer from a couple of typos and a grammatical error of two, but as for credits, the owner of most of the images is Charles Greene. They are copyrighted images that were taken at the Ohio auction house with their permission. At the time that I saw them, the negatives were owned by the auction house. Permission for taking the photos was given to me by the auction house before I flew to Ohio to see them in person. The other images in the book come for Potter & Potter, The McCord Stewart Museum, and private collections.
DeleteThe photos did not belong to the auction company, they were being auctioned / sold to new rightfully owners who may have had plans to write their own book, articles etc. When you went to the auction house to take photographs, did you tell them you were using the photos as a commercial enterprise to produce a book, view finders and magnets knowing full well soon someone else would purchase them? Are you saying none of the photos in your book are in the Don Greenberg collection? You contacted Greenberg prior to publishing the book? You reached out in social media, blogs and other means to find out who owned a good number of the photos you used for your publication? The answer is no to all of the above. You may fool one half of the collecting community, but the other half are fully aware of how poorly you've handled this in our opinion.
ReplyDeleteDear Anon... of September 8.
ReplyDeleteYou speak of photos. All of the photos of the glass plate negatives are mine. I may be the only person who has a complete set of the original gpn. They are the original glass plate negatives that were the property of the auction house when I saw them in Ohio in September 2024. There were a part of a multi-day sale of abandoned safe-deposit box property. For items to reach a state of "abandoned," they go through a legal process called "escheachment." This is generally a 5 year process. After that, the items are available for someone to sell or dispose of.
When the glass negatives were in the auction house, they belonged to the auction house. Thus, when photographed the negatives, they were the property of the auction house. It was only after the sale, and after that, when the items were paid for, that the ownership changed. I won one lot. It was only when I paid for my lot that they became mine. As the other lot was not paid for until after I paid for mine, the other lot was still owned by the auction house when I went back to Ohio to pick up my lot.
Thus, the photos in Exposing Houdini were taken were of negatives owned by Apple Tree auction. No one else owned them at the time that I saw them.
Before flying to Ohio, I had asked the auction house for permission to photograph the negatives. They said "Yes" with no restrictions. While I was in the room, other people took pictures as well. During the two hours that I took photo with my IPhone, I was supervised and only allowed one lot at a time.
My only intention of taking the images was to share them with the community of magic historians. That is why, on the day that the auction, publicly announced the sale and sent images to John Cox, which he published on his site in various areas.
I then published a large number of images on FaceBook. No one responded with a concern or idea of ownership.
Two months after the auction, I took a binder of 8x10 images of the gpn images to NEMCA in Nashua. The binder was shown to many collectors, including Ray Ricard, Bruce Averbook, and John Gaughan. No one mentioned a concern of ownership. Ray, Bruce, and others, mentioned knowing about the auction, but they did not follow up.
The idea to create a book with my photographs did not happen until January of this year, 2026 - nine months ago - one year and four months after the auction.
The auxiliary marketing items came about this year, after the book was published in April 2026.
On the day that I heard that Don Greenberg might be the owner of the other lot, I called him. He did not return my call. I have reached out to him repeatedly by phone, text, and email. He has chosen not to contact me. That is his choice. I've never met him or had a conversation with him. Yet, he was in my presence at Bill Smith's Expo in NJ and never bothered to speak to me. Again, his choice.
You are anonymous, yet you say that you speak for "half of the magic collecting community." You propose questions for me and then you answer for me. You do all of this and you choose not to share who you are. That is your choice. You may keep writing, but your anonymity does does not serve you well. I'm glad that you are willing to share your opinion. It would be beneficial if you would share your name.
My first interest was to ensure that images of Houdini that had been unseen for more than 100 years be available to the magic community and not hidden again and never seen. I used the internet, a collecting expo, and publication of images to do so. All of was done openly and legally. Now, the book Exposing Houdini and its images are copyrighted and hold a special protection with copyright registration. They images are now available to all, instead of being hidden away.