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THBLeather Top Hat from Blackstone’s Whiskers Illusion.
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About Auction
LiveOct 28, 2017 - Oct 29, 2017
Potter & Potter Auctions potterauctions@gmail.com
View Full Catalog (473)
- Lot Description
Blackstone, Harry (Henry Boughton). Leather Top Hat from Blackstone’s Whiskers Illusion. Circa 1930. Oversize hand-stitched thick leather top hat worn in the closing illusion on the Blackstone show. Accompanied by an original 14 x 11” sepia toned photograph of Blackstone & Co. performing the effect, and clearly showing the leather plug hat in place on the head of a bewhiskered Blackstone assistant. Also accompanied by a holographic letter initialed by Blackstone stating, “While in New York I bought a few costumes and a grotesque bear for the finale.” This is the bear costume used in Who Wears the Whiskers, and appears prominently in the foreground of the image included with this lot. Hat 12 x 7”; well worn from professional use, but sturdy and intact. Photograph and letter in very good condition. Blackstone developed the “Whiskers” illusion in the 1920s and it remained in his repertoire for decades. The effect was colorful, stage-filling, and surprising; so strong, in fact, that it closed his show for years. In Blackstone: A Magician’s Life, Dan Waldron described it thusly: “It was fundamentally a fast-moving switch illusion…. To the lively music of “Shoot,” an old man with whiskers climbs out of a giant Jack-in-the-Box and threatens Harry, who grabs a banner to shield himself. On dropping the banner, the man behind turns out to be, not Harry, but a gorilla (early on, a bear). An assistant fires a gun at the gorilla. The old man and the gorilla dance together. When the gorilla throws off its head it is the assistant. The old man whips off his big plug hat and whiskers. It is Harry.” The Whiskers illusion was so effective, Harry Blackstone Jr. used it in his own show too.
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