William Larsen Sr. was Bess Houdini's lawyer and did have a fair amount of Houdini artifacts, so this certainly sounds legit. Unfortunately, I don't know who "Karlin" was. But if the flashlight was around in 1946 and understood to be Houdini's, is there a chance it still survives today? What an illuminating piece of Houdini history that would be!
UPDATE 2: The flashlight survives and you can see it here: This is Houdini's seance flashlight!
Wow, nice cache of Houdini artifacts (flashlight, photos, movie stills, challenges). Per Oct 2017 P&P magic auction catalog, Hippisley was a friend of Blackstone and had quite the collection stored in a barn until 1970 when Michigan collectors Dan Waldron and Bob Lund purchased a huge portion of the Blackstone show and personal effects.
ReplyDeleteThanks Joe. Hippisley did indeed sell off his collection in 1970. Stay tuned. :)
DeleteMinutia to be sure, but do we know what make & model flashlight Houdini used? My guess based on drawing is Eveready 2602
ReplyDeleteI don't know the make & model, but that sounds like a good guess.
DeleteThis is actual footage of Fox and Cox looking for the flashlight.
ReplyDeleteLuckily we didn't run into a nest of bees...like Cox & Culliton did.
ReplyDeleteWorth every sting. :p
DeleteAs Joe Notaro points out, George Hippisley aka Karlin housed nearly every prop of Blackstone Sr's in Upstate New York
ReplyDeleteIn 2013 I decided to see what was left. Hippisley's son housed a large amount of magic of his father's. It included Blackstone trunks and items that never made the list from Herrmann to Houdini and lots of Blackstone material. This was years before another auction house sold Waldron's Blackstone material he purchased in the late 1960's into early 70's. I was able to also purchase the many letters Bob Lund sent to Hippisley. According to Lund, the original intention of his museum was to be called the Blackstone Museum of Magic.
I often wondered what that crummy flashlight with corroded battery terminals was for?.....Now I know :)
David Haversat
Hey David. That might have just been a crummy flashlight. I'll have something more about this next week.
DeleteGREAT NEWS! The flashlight survives and tomorrow (10/19) I will share pics and the full story.
ReplyDeleteBoom. Check it out.
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