This rare poster featuring Harry Houdini just conjured a world sales record. (Courtesy of Potter & Potter Auctions, Chicago)

A rare poster featuring Harry Houdini just conjured a world sales record. It sold for an astounding $180,000 including the buyer’s premium. It’s the highest price ever paid for a magic-themed poster.

On Saturday, Dec. 9, Chicago’s Potter & Potter Auctions hosted Select Secrets, a curated auction of items from the life and career of the great Houdini.

“It had certainly crossed my mind that we had the potential for strong results with the sale of this poster; a new world record never entered the picture,” said auctioneer Gabe Fajuri. “On the other hand, it should come as no surprise that Houdini, the most famous magician of all time, would be the one to make history.”

The poster features an image of Houdini performing his famous Milk Can Escape, in which the performer was locked into a galvanized iron can filled with water and secured by locks. The image is rich with showmanship and hyperbole, warning: “Failure Means a Drowning Death.”

The poster is one of only five known to exist. It was originally acquired in 1981 at the Houdini estate sale in New Jersey. The poster had been found in a storage trunk in the basement of Houdini’s home in Harlem, where it sat for decades after his untimely death on Oct. 31, 1926.

Potter & Potter had previously held the record for the highest-selling magic poster with the 2017 sale of a Houdini Water Torture Cell poster for $114,000. That was bested in 2021 by a Sotheby’s sale of $151,000. But when the auctioneer banged the gavel over the weekend, Potter & Potter reclaimed its position as the world record holder for a magic-themed poster.