Now you see it! Now you don’t!
We know that the hand is not really quicker than the eye. That’s where we come into the wonderful sphere of the magician. The success of magic lies in his ability to create illusions that have the appearance of reality.
The stamp world was initiated into the world of magic last year when the U.S. Postal Service issued a 37-cent stamp honoring Harry Houdini, the most famous of modern era magicians who astonished audiences with his daring escapes not only from handcuffs but also straitjackets, ropes, chains, jail cells and even trunks immersed in water.
Harry Houdini was born Erich Weisz on March 24, 1874, in Budapest, Hungary. His family immigrated to the United States when he was 4 and settled in Wisconsin. He went on to perform magic and escape tricks in dime museums, circuses and medicine shows, changing his name in the early 1890s as a tribute to the famous French illusionist, Jean-Eugene Robert Houdin.
The new stamp featured a portrait of Houdini by designer Richard Sheaff showing a confident, self-assured magician at the height of his career taken from a 1911 lithograph poster.