$1,800
[Houdini and Margery] Houdini and psychic medium Margery (Mina Crandon) photographs. Eleven photographs showing or related to the famous fraudulent spirit medium Margery (Mina Crandon). Two photographs show Houdini with Margery in front of her Boston home. In one, Houdini and the medium pose with J. Malcolm Bird outside Margery's home; in the other they stand near O.D. Munn, publisher of Scientific American. Other photographs include three portraits of Margery (in two of them, she smirks knowingly), interior and exterior views of a Psychic Bookshop, a spirit photograph, and more. Also included is a typed letter from a "believer" in spiritualism to a Mr. Hope in which the writer thanks Hope for producing a spirit photograph of his departed wife and child. Mounted on two sides of a stiff album page. Letter trimmed, margins of some photos chipped and trimmed, but overall good condition. Margery was a Boston-based medium who produced ghosts and spirits so realistic and under such stringent test conditions that Houdini was enlisted as part of a Scientific American magazine-sponsored committee to test the legitimacy of her powers. He participated in five sittings with the psychic and eventually denounced her as a fraud, going so far as to publish and widely distribute an expose of her methods. Of the Scientific American committee, Margery said, "I respect Houdini more than any of the bunch. He has both feet on the ground all the time.
Auctioneer:
Potter & Potter
Date:
2011-10-29
