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Mark B. Ledenbach's vintage Halloween collectibles blog.

Antique Gummed Embossed Foil Halloween Seals - Witch Jack O Lantern - Box of 5

These seals were produced by Hallmark during the mid-1920s. They came in boxes of 15 seals. (They may have been sold in boxes of different quantities, but the box I own is for 15 seals. The box is marked as being a Hall Brothers product.) The box in this listing doesn’t belong with the seals. Given the size of the seals, the box is much too big. Hallmark never had a factory in Attleboro.

Antique Vintage Halloween Dennison The Spook Meet Hallowe'en Party for Grown-ups

Dennison was routinely trying new things to promote their wares, one of the reasons they are still in business today. In 1929, some employee had the idea of targeting decorating ideas for specific types of events and promoting these ideas in an eight-panel fold-out brochure. There were at least three of these publications. I own examples of the first and third in the series. (You can see the third on page 107.) These come up rarely, probably because the print run was small and few kept it. I have only seen this a handful of times and the third in the series only once. The condition is less-than-ideal, but it may be worth picking up if you feel the price is right.

02/18 Update: This fetched $106.27, more than I would have predicted.

Auction 2025 Is Coming!

Hi Everyone,
I’ve been toiling away preparing for the March 2025 auction. I plan to begin sending out emails and otherwise publicizing the annual event on February 16th, so stay tuned.
If you haven’t received an email from me by February 20th, please contact me to ensure I have your most current email. (If you’d like to do that proactively, please do so.)
Best, MBL

Antique 1940s Halloween Party Invitation Black Cats Pumpkin Unused 4.5x 3” VTG

Whitney was an organization that seemingly didn’t prioritize organization. They manufactured boxes for both place cards and invitations designed to hold ten items plus their envelopes. The contents of any box, though, was a crapshoot. Like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, a buyer never knew what they were actually buying. Whitney would load each box with whatever was at hand. Sometimes all ten invitations would be identical, sometimes the box contained an assortment. The assortment would be truly that - sometimes there would be cats and sometimes witches. I’ve seen MANY complete boxes of Whitney place cards and invitations and seldom, if ever, were the contents consistent. What I have noticed is that their place cards and invitations featuring witches are far less common than the ones featuring cats. This penchant for running their business so loosely may have contributed to their demise. Whitney was toast by 1942.

MINT Unused Vintage Halloween Tally Cards Jack o' Lantern Rust Craft

Rust Craft produced some of the more innovative small paper designs. I’ve become an avid collector of their Halloween output. This tally is not often found in collectible condition. Can you guess why? If you said its slightly larger-than-average size and its very irregular borders - go to the head of the class!

Vintage Halloween 1920s Beistle Mechanical Jointed Bat

This is an astonishing result. This mechanical bat was produced by Beistle. It was sold in an envelope with a mechanical owl during the 1920s. (Beistle used at least two different colored envelopes. Some envelopes were tissue thin while others were of a medium-gauge card stock.) These bats typically bring about half of what this brought. I attribute it to the confluence of these factors: condition, the great photos, the clear description and the paucity of quality items on eBay right now.

Very Rare Antique Vintage Halloween 1930s Beistle Honeycomb Witch and Moon Hat

This exceedingly rare hat was produced by Beistle from 1933-1937. It is one of the four designs that comprise the full set of what Beistle called New Moon Hats. After all my years of collecting, I have found only three of the four. The one that’s missing is this very design, but the condition was too compromised for me to even consider acquiring it. Even with its condition and the time of the year, it did fetch an astounding $212.51.

Antique Vintage Halloween Plastic Cake Cupcake Decorations In Original Package

I found this listing interesting in that this packaged assortment of hard plastic toppers was offered by the Lone Toy Tree Company of Carmel, California. The firm wasn’t even incorporated until June of 1967, so they must have been simply a wholesale repackager of goods. These toppers were initially offered in the 1950s, long before the Lone Toy Tree Company was even in a glint in the milkman’s eye, to borrow a favorite phrase from Black Adder. The upshot is to be cautious with attributing products with a specific firm based on packaging alone.

Barbara Smuts - R.I.P.

I wanted to take a moment to honor a person who was instrumental in shaping my life. Barbara Smuts was the person who started me on my journey of collecting vintage Halloween memorabilia. She ran a one-person antiques shop in Fair Oaks, California, from 1982 until 2013. It was into her shop, Blue Eagle Antiques, that I wandered one day in early October of 1988, not knowing how that innocent browsing excursion would alter my wallet and sensibilities. Barbara, the epitome of midwestern kindness, had an encyclopedic knowledge of antiques. Her specialization was in American primitive furniture but she knew a lot on a lot of subjects, including holiday memorabilia. Well, that day she asked if I’d mind moving a few boxes from a back storeroom to a spot near the large front window. I did move them and asked what was in them. She said it was the vintage Halloween items that she saved all year to put out for sale a few weeks before Halloween. Well, I opened the boxes and was instantly hooked. (Truly, instantly hooked, buying much of the contents of those boxes that very day for $300.) From that day forward, I always considered Barbara to be the godmother of my collection. I dedicated all three editions of my book to her. We remained friends until her passing at nearly 91 on November 20th. I last spoke to her this past Halloween. Barbara was a truly remarkable person. She was funny, witty and canny - all wonderful qualities. Barbara was the mother to three lucky children and the wife of a very lucky guy, Jerry.
Below is a photo I snapped of Barbara, stalwart at her shop’s counter, on Halloween of 1992. She was in the spirit. Look at her scarf and its central JOL.

RARE Vintage Halloween Moon & Cats Decoration Casting/Mold Plate

Here’s something I’ve not seen for decades - a seemingly actual pressing plate used to produce one of Beistle’s well-known diecuts. Diecuts from this set of twelve were made from 1932 through the early 1950s. Collectors can estimate when diecuts from this set were pressed based on the level of embossing present. (As the plate was used over time the level of detail from the plate would decrease.) This kind of artifact from the production process almost never surfaces. I saw a few back in the early 1990s, but none since. The price seems right as many collectors, like me, aren’t overly interested in such items.

Vintage Halloween Orange Cat Paper Mache Lantern

This is the time of the year when quality vintage Halloween listings on eBay are unusual. The number of newly produced items, mostly made offshore, populating eBay’s listings is overwhelming. I do wish they would rigorously police their categories. So, it was nice to see this great little cat head lantern. This particular pulp lantern is on the harder-to-find end of the availability spectrum. I think if this lantern would have been offered in the June-August timeframe it may have brought ~20% more. When things are offered in an auction setting make a difference.

Antique 1940s Cardboard Noisemaker Horn Halloween Durene Yarn x3 Vintage Toy

This trio of horns was produced by Bugle Toy of Providence, RI, during the 1940s. The seller notes the textile labels on the interior of what is now a horn noisemaker. The labels provide a clue as to the cost savings emphasis kept front-and-center by Bugle as well as other manufacturers. They would purchase used textile spindles in bulk to use as the basis for which to wrap the spindles in lithoed paper to mark various holidays, like Halloween. One might ask why firms like Bugle wouldn’t remove the labels. Don’t forget that these operations were not high-margin endeavors. These horns originally sold for pennies. Removing the labels would add to production costs without a real benefit, so the labels stayed.