275: Houdini owned/signed 1856 book on locks and keys

[Houdini] Price, George. Treatise on Fire & Thief-Proof Depositories and Locks and Keys. London, 1856. Blue cloth stamped in gold. Illustrated. Thick 8vo. Cloth significantly worn and rubbed, spine splitting, hinges starting, and lacking five pages. Fair condition. Housed in a custom leather-covered drop-spine book box stamped in gold on front board and spine with marbled interior. Initialed three times, inscribed and signed by Houdini on the title page. An outstanding association piece, this work on locks and how they operate is likely from Houdini's fabled library, and bears a worn paper label on its spine indicative of this fact. On the title page, in addition to signing his full name, Houdini notes, "This book is wrongly bound. See next page. HH," "I bot [sic] this book in Leeds Yorkshire England HH 1903," and "(Duplicate HH)."