A Key from Houdini's Own Workshop: Surviving the 1995 Fire at the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame

Harry Houdini spent his career turning locks into theater. Long before he was filling arenas as "Harry Handcuff Houdini," he was a working locksmith's student who studied the mechanics of every kind of lock he could get his hands on, and by the height of his fame he could open virtually anything put in front of him, often in full view of a skeptical audience. When he died in 1926, his personal collection of locks, keys, and escape paraphernalia passed to his wife Beatrice and his brother Theodore Hardeen, who continued performing under the Houdini name. From there it went to Joseph Dunninger, the celebrated mentalist and a friend of Houdini's who acquired much of the collection directly from the family. This key is one small piece of that original working collection, the actual tools Houdini used to study, practice, and ultimately master the art that made him famous.

In 1967, Henry Muller purchased the collection from Dunninger and built it into the centerpiece of the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls, Ontario, which operated for decades as one of the only museums in the world dedicated entirely to Houdini. In 1995, a fire tore through much of the building, destroying a significant portion of the collection along with it. This key survived because it happened to be on display in a section of the museum the flames never reached, making it not just a relic of Houdini's own hands but a survivor of the very institution built to preserve his legacy. It comes with a signed letter from Henry Muller's son David, laying out the full chain of custody from Houdini to Beatrice and Hardeen, to Dunninger, to the Muller family, and finally to this piece, a direct and well-documented line back to one of the most famous performers America ever produced.