Now, some 40 years later, Moses has gone from part-time Houdini hobbyist to an internationally recognized collector and Houdini bibliographer, transforming his suburban home in Fort Worth, Texas, into an evolving Houdini archive that is currently home to over 6,500 objects. “The downstairs part of our home, which was my study, is now set up like a museum, encompassing the size of three big rooms. After our kids moved out, we broke through the wall of my son’s bedroom on the second floor and installed a spiral staircase, so now that’s a part of it too. Currently, about 800 square feet of our home is designated just for my collection. When people come over, I always say that if there’s something you want to see or to touch, just ask. You’re not going to hurt anything. Part of why I have all of this stuff is because I also love showing it off.”

While Moses’ fascination with Houdini might veer toward the obsessive, a quick sweep of the internet reveals just how large the famed illusionist and escape artist continues to loom in popular consciousness, even nearly 100 years after his death. A showman with panache, he led with death-defying stunts, escaping from straightjackets while being hoisted from a crane, and somehow cheating death after being submerged upside down in a locked, water-filled box or after being tossed into the ocean in a lead-lined box. It’s hard to imagine the spectacle of David Copperfield or the stunty theatrics of David Blaine without Harry Houdini having created the blueprint. Even though Houdini was hardly the first person to make magic into a career, he is arguably the first to become a globally recognized celebrity for doing so. Still, given the mainstreaming of magic over the last half century, what makes Houdini’s legacy so enduring?

“First of all, there’s the name,” says Moses. “Houdini is a fun word. It’s a very memorable word. It’s not like Smith or Jones, not that there’s anything wrong with Smith or Jones. Also, he certainly brought magic to the front of theatrical performance. He just had a magnetism and he was fearless in both his feats of escape and with his challenges to the public. ‘You bring me your ropes and tie me up,’ or ‘you bring me your straightjacket,’ or ‘you bring me your locks and handcuffs.’ Build a box and I'll escape from it. So glass workers built a glass box for him and he escaped from it. Postal inspectors challenged him to escape from a leather mail bag with a postal lock on it, which he did. He always got away with it, performing all of these challenges while also just being this huge, fearless personality that was full of bravado. There is something really captivating about that.”

While Moses’ collection includes all sorts of things you might expect — an original Houdini straightjacket, handcuffs, picks used by Houdini to escape from locks — the more fascinating pieces are some of the less expected. “To me, the $5 item is just as cool as the $1,000 item,” says Moses, pointing out his massive collection of Houdini publications. “I often say that if you need to do research or look up a specific Houdini publication, you can go to a hundred libraries around the world or you can come to my house. I’ve got close to 3,000 magazines. I also have what would be called or described as a vaudeville sidewalk stand billboard, which is 3 feet wide and 7 feet tall. And there’s only two of those in the world — mine and the one in David Copperfield’s collection.”

Copperfield’s name comes up often in relation to Houdini, not only because he could be a kind of modern heir apparent to someone like Houdini, but also because he owns what is widely considered the greatest collection of Houdini ephemera in the world. As it turns out, most of the big-ticket Houdini collectors also happen to be magicians, which makes Moses — who retired three years ago after running his family’s glass-and-tile business in Texas for 42 years — something of an anomaly in the world of magic collectibles.