Although somebody made the bust of Houdini disappear from a Queens cemetery last weekend, it was only a plastic reproduction, his biographer said yesterday. The Society of American Magicians has a spare.

The marblelike copy was on the magician’s grave in Machpelah Cemetery, one of several old Jewish burial grounds in the Ridgewood Glendale area near the Interborough Parkway. It had replaced a real marble bust installed in 1927—a year after the death of the escape artist—and smashed by vandals in 1976.

The bronze original is in the Museum of the City of New York.

The magician society’s supply of plastic Houdini busts isn’t inexhaustible, according to Milbourne Christopher, Houdini’s biographer.

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