.A Vintage Halloween Minute with MBL - 05 Gibson Party Sign .

This is the fifth of a planned release of one dozen short videos. I will be releasing these over the next few weeks. Enjoy!

Vintage Halloween Celluloid Owl / Tree / Squirrel

A reader, Matt, asked me to comment on this listing. Although I personally don't collect celluloid, I have a great appreciation for its beauty and the fine detail the better pieces possess. (The medium is so fragile that I decided long ago to admire celluloid housed in other collections rather than collect it myself.) This has to represent one of the most appealing and colorful celluloid items available. I have  some friends that live in a more central California city who have one of the finest celluloid collections I have had the privilege of viewing. They have this mold but may have a slightly different color variant. Nonetheless, I do feel that the ending price of $587.50 was surprisingly high given the noticeable hole in the back. 

Rare paper mache black cat lantern

I had to chuckle when I saw this listing. The seller has to know next-to-nothing about vintage Halloween items. He/she marvels that another lantern, orange but otherwise identical, is being offered right now by another seller. I marvel at the starting price of this seriously damaged, very common black cat head lantern. The seller has started it $206.66. Knock the zero out and you will arrive at what this abused cat should fetch.

Halloween Cardboard Candlestick Candy Container

This item was, without question, made in Japan. Most vintage Japanese items were derivative of German and US designs, making them generally less interesting and definitely less valuable than German or US pieces. Compare this to the German candlestick candy container shown on page 105. It has none of the fine detail and inherent charm of the German piece. 

Large German Halloween Pumpkin Man Candy Container

There were two iterations made of this ingeniously designed 1920s German candy container. As I write on page 60, "It features light compo wash over cardboard head, compo shoes, and felt clothing over flexible metal frame. This inspired mixture of differing mediums led to one of the most fanciful of the German creations." This item doesn't come up for sale often. It is a very tall, imposing piece. I think the price is quite fair. Another plus - you have an opportunity to buy from a seller of whom I think quite highly. 

12 VERY OLD EARLY DENNISON HALLOWEEN ICE CREAM PICKS IN ORIGINAL BOX

The seller offering this complete set of twelve Dennison cut-outs typically asks much too much for things when listing items using a fixed price Buy-It-Now option rather than the more traditional auction option. However, in this case  his offering price is just pushing the boundary rather than actually crossing it. $150 for this complete set with seemingly perfect contents and a very fine box doesn't make me wince. If you don't have this set, this may be the time to add it to your collection. 

Vintage Halloween Metal Noisemaker SKELETON

This noisemaker is arguably the best designed noisemaker the U.S. Metal Toy company ever manufactured. It is a large one with excellent lithography. Even though it was produced relatively late in the game - and you can deduce this fact by its always plastic handle - this particular noisemaker is devilishly difficult to locate in acceptable condition. (As one of my favorite Ebay sellers likes to proclaim, "There's no bones about it!") These typically trade in the $175-250 price range, although being so soon after the season, it may fetch less. I'll be watching! 

11/26 addendum: I was glad to see this great noisemaker bring a strong $220.50!

A Vintage Halloween Minute with MBL - 04 Folk Art by Matthew Kirscht

This is the fourth of a planned release of one dozen short videos. I will be releasing these over the next few weeks. Enjoy!

A Vintage Halloween Minute with MBL - 03 German Die-cut Nut Cup

This is the third of a planned release of one dozen short videos. I will be releasing these over the next few weeks. Enjoy!

Another Fantasy Piece

This is yet another fantasy piece that began showing up around 1995. There is nothing about this item that is compelling. The molding is poor, the colors ho-hum and the concept of the item is lazy. If you have made an error and actually have one of these in your collection, get some use out of it. Use it for skeet practice! 

The Seller Is A Dreamer...

This has to be one of the sorriest diecuts I've seen offered on Ebay in quite some time. This poor thing is missing pieces and has more tape than Joan Rivers after her latest surgery. The seller, though, remains very much the dreamer in writing, "He does have a few scraps bends and lots of tape marks, so I would say he is in very good condition not mint..." Not only is the seller's punctuation a bit dodgy, but the attribution of the item being in very good condition is the very definition of optimism. Couple that with the required opening bid of $45 and a Buy-It-Now of $195, perhaps the level of optimism could be accurately assessed as being laughable. Needless to say, this item has no collectible value. 

Caveat Emptor - One of The Best Known Fantasy Pieces

What you see is one of the best-known fantasy pieces plaguing our fine hobby. This devil head candy container began showing up in ~1995, the same time the reclining devil horn with a black blow-out paper streamer also appeared. Their entry point into the US collecting market was through a single German-based dealer set up at the Atlantic City show at that time. Generally, these fantasy pieces (meaning there is no vintage equivalent) do not have a cardboard bottom plug as this one is shown to have. In any event, do not waste your money on this if you are wanting to expand your collection. This item has nothing but decorative value, meaning, at most, $30. Caveat emptor!

11/26 addendum: I'm bummed that someone blew $98.44 on this fantasy piece. 

Not Much On Ebay

As one would expect, now that Halloween is over the number and quality of the listings have lessened on Ebay. Although there are a few good things listed, by and large the category is stuffed with junk. I noticed that the "Pick-A-Pumpkin" Halloween fortune game went unsold even though the seller listed it at $2000 as a Buy-It-Now AND allowed Best Offers to be submitted. There apparently were three offers submitted, but to no avail. Given the relatively large quantities of these games found earlier this year, I think fair market value for them hovers around $1,000. This valuation will probably remain static for the foreseeable future. 

Addendum as of 11/26: The same seller referenced above has once again offered a "Pick-A-Pumpkin" Halloween fortune game for sale on Ebay with a Buy-It-Now/Best Offer option starting at $2,000. Once again it has languished, this time with no offers submitted as of this writing. With the large mint quantities (with envelope) recently found of this item, prices have understandably plummeted. I still  feel a fair market value for this game is around $1,000 - a valuation that should remain static for the foreseeable future. 

Antique German Pumpkin Tea Set

I think that the buyer of this set got a good deal. All the pieces appear to have been marked appropriately and appear to be in acceptable condition. The seller correctly pointed out that the tea pot and its lid are married items. The manufacturers of these porcelain items used two different marks. The marks present in this lot of items indicate these items were made later in the run, probably between 1925-1932. The stars of this lot are the saucers. 

Halloween Noisemaker

This noisemaker is not a vintage item. It was made about 7 years ago for one season as part of a set sold exclusively at Restoration Hardware. The set consisted of a trio of items, one of which was a ratchet style noisemaker. The items from this set, including the one now being offered by this seller, have zero collectible value. So - caveat emptor!