$50 For You If You Can Nail Him Up -- May 4, 2013

Harry Blackstone was a great showman.  He was able to attract people to his shows with stunts like offering fifty dollars to anyone who could build a container that could hold him.  He had a long successful career and his son, Blackstone Junior, also became a magician.  Blackstone, Senior inspired a comic book and a radio show, both titled Blackstone, Magic Detective. 

The article is from the 15-November-1922 Seattle Star. Be sure to click on the image to see a larger version.  

$50 for You If You Can Nail Him Up

The Great Blackstone

If there is a carpenter, or anyone else, for that matter. In Seattle who thinks he can build a box strong enough to hold the Great Blackstone, man of mystery, who heads Pantages vaudeville this week, he is invited by the management of the theater to try, and if he can imprison the magician by nailing him in the box, he will be awarded $50.

Blackstone really startled audiences at the Pantages theater with his tricks.  His "vanishing horse," his spiritual tricks and his quick change stunts are principals among his offerings of old and new illusions.

One feature of the Blackstone act is a Ku Klux Klan scene, in which Blackstone is seized by masked men, placed in a sack in full view of the audience and raised high above the floor. A pistol is fired and the sack falls empty to the floor. The Klan rider on a horse, which has been standing at the front of the stage takes off his mask  He is Blackstone. It is a trick that apparently defies explanation.