brindamour

Last spring I was lucky enough to acquire Brindamour’s scrapbook. A fascinating, but very fragile collection of photos and newspaper reviews from about 1900 to 1921.

I know very little about handcuffs (I am a “book guy”) and wonder if anyone could help me out. Brindamour made and sold several types of cuffs. I have attached a copy of the page from his scrapbook that shows these cuffs. Two were "twisters" and the other was a single cuff. Can you tell me what the common names are for these cuffs, are these types common, and any insight into how they were used. Have you ever seen this cuffs before? Thanks

I am giving a presentation on Brindamour at the LA Magic History Conference next month. If anyone is interested I can post some of the photos from the scrapbook.

Thanks for the help.

Gary Hunt
Editor
Magical Past-Times: The On-Line Journal of Magic History
www.uelectric.com/pastimes
garyhunt@mindspring.com


ps could not get it to upload. e-mail if you want a copy.

Wow, Brindamour scrap book. Any chance that you could bring it to the next Indianapolis Escape convention? Would love to get a look at it.

Last spring I was lucky enough to acquire Brindamour’s scrapbook. A fascinating, but very fragile collection of photos and newspaper reviews from about 1900 to 1921.

I know very little about handcuffs (I am a “book guy”) and wonder if anyone could help me out. Brindamour made and sold several types of cuffs. I have attached a copy of the page from his scrapbook that shows these cuffs. Two were "twisters" and the other was a single cuff. Can you tell me what the common names are for these cuffs, are these types common, and any insight into how they were used. Have you ever seen this cuffs before? Thanks

I am giving a presentation on Brindamour at the LA Magic History Conference next month. If anyone is interested I can post some of the photos from the scrapbook.

Thanks for the help.

Gary Hunt
Editor
Magical Past-Times: The On-Line Journal of Magic History
www.uelectric.com/pastimes
garyhunt@mindspring.com


ps could not get it to upload. e-mail if you want a copy.

Click to expand...

Gary: I will be attending the LA Conference On Magic History. I have private e-mailed you. I'll be glad to assist you anyway I can.
Joseph Fox

Last spring I was lucky enough to acquire Brindamour’s scrapbook. A fascinating, but very fragile collection of photos and newspaper reviews from about 1900 to 1921.

I know very little about handcuffs (I am a “book guy”) and wonder if anyone could help me out. Brindamour made and sold several types of cuffs. I have attached a copy of the page from his scrapbook that shows these cuffs. Two were "twisters" and the other was a single cuff. Can you tell me what the common names are for these cuffs, are these types common, and any insight into how they were used. Have you ever seen this cuffs before? Thanks

I am giving a presentation on Brindamour at the LA Magic History Conference next month. If anyone is interested I can post some of the photos from the scrapbook.

Thanks for the help.

Gary Hunt
Editor
Magical Past-Times: The On-Line Journal of Magic History
www.uelectric.com/pastimes
garyhunt@mindspring.com


ps could not get it to upload. e-mail if you want a copy.

Click to expand...

Just wanted to thank everyone who responed to my request for information. It is great to see help from fellow collectors.

After the conference next week I pull together a short article on Brindamour for this site.

Gary Hunt
Editor
Magical Past-Times

Last spring I was lucky enough to acquire Brindamour’s scrapbook. A fascinating, but very fragile collection of photos and newspaper reviews from about 1900 to 1921.

I know very little about handcuffs (I am a “book guy”) and wonder if anyone could help me out. Brindamour made and sold several types of cuffs. I have attached a copy of the page from his scrapbook that shows these cuffs. Two were "twisters" and the other was a single cuff. Can you tell me what the common names are for these cuffs, are these types common, and any insight into how they were used. Have you ever seen this cuffs before? Thanks

I am giving a presentation on Brindamour at the LA Magic History Conference next month. If anyone is interested I can post some of the photos from the scrapbook.

Thanks for the help.

Gary Hunt
Editor
Magical Past-Times: The On-Line Journal of Magic History
www.uelectric.com/pastimes
garyhunt@mindspring.com


ps could not get it to upload. e-mail if you want a copy.

Click to expand...

Hell all,
Lately I was lucky enough to acquire from an old friend a vast treasure trove of vintage escpologist material which inluded some of Brindamour's pictures and promo material, a letter he had wriiten and signed on his letterhead, a few tricked locks and one set of cuffs he owned and many more items pertaining to many famous and not so famous escapists of Houdini's day. 99% of this rare material had come direct from the esctate of Harry Houdini. Proveance on these items shows that when Harry died, Bess Houdini gave or sold these things to Joseph Dunninger. Joe died and then his wife survived him and eventually gave or sold many items to Ruchard Simzer who was a Canadian mentalist who had befriended her. Some of you may recall when many years back Simzer struck a deal with Joe Tanner who put together a catalogue and sold many of the Houdini items. Well, fortunately for me, not all of the Houdini items Bess gave to Dunninger got to tanner. Some of them, like the paper items, found thier was from Simzers hands to the collection of a friend in Torornto who at the time did and collected escapes and escapology related items. Another item from Joe Dunninger's collection was one of Houdini's "Siberian Cell" padlocks which he is seen wearing in his famous manacled in the loin cloth hunched over shot. Happily, all of the above, including the grand prize; a set of Bean Giants Dunninger got from Bess and were most likely used by Harry are now proudly in my collection and will make up a featured core of the soon to be laid out "Canadian Restraint and Escapology Museum". It really is a neat opportunity to handle items used by legedary performers and also see images of long forgotten brothers of the escape art. Regards, Steve Santini

Last spring I was lucky enough to acquire Brindamour’s scrapbook. A fascinating, but very fragile collection of photos and newspaper reviews from about 1900 to 1921.

I know very little about handcuffs (I am a “book guy”) and wonder if anyone could help me out. Brindamour made and sold several types of cuffs. I have attached a copy of the page from his scrapbook that shows these cuffs. Two were "twisters" and the other was a single cuff. Can you tell me what the common names are for these cuffs, are these types common, and any insight into how they were used. Have you ever seen this cuffs before? Thanks

I am giving a presentation on Brindamour at the LA Magic History Conference next month. If anyone is interested I can post some of the photos from the scrapbook.

Thanks for the help.

Gary Hunt
Editor
Magical Past-Times: The On-Line Journal of Magic History
www.uelectric.com/pastimes
garyhunt@mindspring.com


ps could not get it to upload. e-mail if you want a copy.

Click to expand...

Gary emailed me the picture. Here it is.

<A HREF="http://handcuffs.org/images/brindamour1.jpg">
</A>
The first item is a very interesting nipper made from a single Maltby round key handcuff. This was a good idea since the Maltby has a unique trigger closing mechanism. The second two items are rather conventional chain nippers.
Thanks go to Gary for sharing this with us.

Joe

and here is a close up of the Maltby.

Last spring I was lucky enough to acquire Brindamour’s scrapbook. A fascinating, but very fragile collection of photos and newspaper reviews from about 1900 to 1921.

I know very little about handcuffs (I am a “book guy”) and wonder if anyone could help me out. Brindamour made and sold several types of cuffs. I have attached a copy of the page from his scrapbook that shows these cuffs. Two were "twisters" and the other was a single cuff. Can you tell me what the common names are for these cuffs, are these types common, and any insight into how they were used. Have you ever seen this cuffs before? Thanks

I am giving a presentation on Brindamour at the LA Magic History Conference next month. If anyone is interested I can post some of the photos from the scrapbook.

Thanks for the help.

Gary Hunt
Editor
Magical Past-Times: The On-Line Journal of Magic History
www.uelectric.com/pastimes
garyhunt@mindspring.com


ps could not get it to upload. e-mail if you want a copy.

Click to expand...

Dear Gary,
Thank you very much for sharing these images and information with us! Just something I noticed; the chain twister on the bottom right of the flyer looks a great deal like a European twister I have seen twice over the years come up on ebay. I wonder of this image posted is Brindamour's prototype or if it is a picture of the European one I have seen. It would also be neat to know which inspired which or if in fact they were independantly invented without knowledge of the other. Alas, things we will never know. Thanks again Gary. Regards, Steve Santini

Last spring I was lucky enough to acquire Brindamour’s scrapbook. A fascinating, but very fragile collection of photos and newspaper reviews from about 1900 to 1921.

I know very little about handcuffs (I am a “book guy”) and wonder if anyone could help me out. Brindamour made and sold several types of cuffs. I have attached a copy of the page from his scrapbook that shows these cuffs. Two were "twisters" and the other was a single cuff. Can you tell me what the common names are for these cuffs, are these types common, and any insight into how they were used. Have you ever seen this cuffs before? Thanks

I am giving a presentation on Brindamour at the LA Magic History Conference next month. If anyone is interested I can post some of the photos from the scrapbook.

Thanks for the help.

Gary Hunt
Editor
Magical Past-Times: The On-Line Journal of Magic History
www.uelectric.com/pastimes
garyhunt@mindspring.com


ps could not get it to upload. e-mail if you want a copy.

Click to expand...

The page from the scrapbook that showed the cuffs also had two short newsapper articles, from 1914,that mentioned them. Here one of them:

Handcuff King Improves Police Apparatus to Hold Prisoners
Brindamour the handcuff King has invented three new articles for police used in the form of a handcuff nipper and two different style twisters. These twisters have a great advantage over the old twisters and come-alongs, as they can be adjusted very quickly to any wrist and will not cut an officer’s fingers when handling a tough prisoner, which is a big improvement over all other makes. They are the only ones ever invented that will lock when they strike the wrist.

Gary Hunt

Last spring I was lucky enough to acquire Brindamour’s scrapbook. A fascinating, but very fragile collection of photos and newspaper reviews from about 1900 to 1921.

I know very little about handcuffs (I am a “book guy”) and wonder if anyone could help me out. Brindamour made and sold several types of cuffs. I have attached a copy of the page from his scrapbook that shows these cuffs. Two were "twisters" and the other was a single cuff. Can you tell me what the common names are for these cuffs, are these types common, and any insight into how they were used. Have you ever seen this cuffs before? Thanks

I am giving a presentation on Brindamour at the LA Magic History Conference next month. If anyone is interested I can post some of the photos from the scrapbook.

Thanks for the help.

Gary Hunt
Editor
Magical Past-Times: The On-Line Journal of Magic History
www.uelectric.com/pastimes
garyhunt@mindspring.com


ps could not get it to upload. e-mail if you want a copy.

Click to expand...

Thanks Steve for the letter head from your collection. Very nice item.

gary hunt