A Fun Trip To Disneyland...

I just returned from a 5 day trip down to southern California, having a blast with good friends in Disneyland and California Adventure. I attended "Mickey's Halloween Party" on Friday night, which really put me in the mood for this fun season. (I will say that the parade's endlessly repeated ditty was annoying and overly joyous.) 

While down in that very thirsty part of California, I was privileged to visit three vintage Halloween collections. It is always such fun to see how other collections are displayed and what items I still have to acquire. (There is so much!) 

Thanks to LM, JW and V&JP. You all enriched what was already a very fun excursion.  

A special thanks to TM and BK for organizing the whole adventure. You guys rock! 

1927 Vintage Halloween Game ~ Pumpkin Face Ring Game ~ Complete W/ Box

I have examined many of the breathtaking prices recently seen on Ebay, especially those involving vintage Beistle items. These sky-high ending prices seem to have been driven by two or three bidders who, when taken out of the equation, would not have resulted in "world record" levels. Look at this game for example. Its ending price of $536 was driven by two bidders. Remove them from the picture and the price would have settled at a more sustainable $242. Now, I know that this is an imperfect assertion since automatically generated bids may not register at the last second given the level of bidding at the precise moment of execution, but I think my statement is generally true. Once these deep-pocketed bidders acquire such items, prices should return to more sustainable levels, still inviting to new and intermediate collectors. 

56 Vintage Halloween Nut Cups Made in U.S.A.

With these kinds of finds prices for the found items plummet while the market digests the sudden influx. These Beistle reversible nut cups were made for a long period, 1930s through 1950, so prices were never that strong to begin with. 

4 PC VINTAGE HANGING DIE CUT DECORATIONS, SKULL, JOL, WITCH, CLOWN

The seller, curiousimp, is back. Several years ago it seemed that this seller sold nothing except poorly made reproductions that were represented as authentic, vintage items. This lot of 4 small diecuts, originally made by Beistle, seems to fit that description. Authentic such diecuts are lightly embossed and wouldn't have that reflective glare that is oh-so-reminiscent of something flat and shellacked. Buy from this seller with caution. 

Vintage Halloween GYPSY WITCH: HAY WAGON HORSE CATS Fortune ACTRESS G. SWANSON

This detailed fortune card was made by Whitney and almost certainly dates to the 1920s. Whitney was out of business after 1943.  

Rare 1902 Halloween JOL Box Lantern Seneca Falls NY

There were two iterations made by this design-challenged firm. This JOL and its mate, a black cat face, are curiously flat wall-hanging items, lacking pizzazz. The cat surfaces less than the JOL, but neither tend to draw significant dollars, no doubt due to how uninteresting they are. 

Vintage Gibson Halloween Die-Cut Cat Head Tongue Twister

This large size of what Gibson called Slick Tongue Twisters were sold in envelopes of six with the subtitle being "A Side Splitting Novelty Game for the Hallowe'en Party." I suspect that this great seller simply didn't realize that printed on the tongue is a tongue twister to be said rapidly by those long-ago party goers.  

Rare Find! Halloween Die-Cut Jointed Honeycomb Double-Sided Tango Witch

The market for vintage Beistle items in near-mint condition is hotter now than perhaps it has ever been. I would have never forecast (or even dreamed) that this iconic Beistle witch tango figure would have commanded the price it did. As with anything else, vintage Halloween items in the condition this piece was in bring multiples of guide value, a phenomenon well known in the comic collecting market with that same phenomenon now aggressively moving in to our fun hobby's market.  

Vintage Halloween Fibro Toy JOL man pulling cart slot & Tab Candy Container!

Out of the trio of slot and tab candy containers Fibro Toy manufactured, this is - hands down - the most difficult to locate. (The other two are the witch pulling a hay wagon and a black cat pulling a JOL wagon.) These were made in a span ranging from 1934 to 1953, but I suspect this design was made for a lesser number of years. Because there is no stamped mark underneath, we do know that this particular item was made later in the overall production run.  

Vintage Antique Wood HALLOWEEN Decoration Black Cat and Moon MUST SEE!

This is a modern folk art reproduction with little collectible value.  

Vintage Halloween Candy Container Skeleton and JOL

This particular slot and tab container has been reproduced with black interior paper, so at least they are easily distinguishable from true vintage items like this one. 

Vintage Halloween Lanter Pumpkin Goblin Germany

This item is a fantasy piece manufactured no earlier than the mid-1990s. As the general collecting public caught on to how hot the vintage Halloween market was, manufacturers in Europe began cranking out these kinds of items. Many collectors were fooled then, and continue to be fooled today. Don't become yet another one taken in by these abominations.  

Vintage Owl Halloween Decoration Die Cut Cellophane eyes 13"x10" Made In U.S.A.

The seller made a mistake listing this with a BIN of $28.95, a mistake probably apparent as a scant 23 minutes elapsed between the time it was listed and some informed buyer snapped it up. This is - hands down - the rarest of the large diecuts Beistle issued with transparencies. It surfaces so rarely that I finally acquired one after nearly two decades of searching only 5 years ago. I feel the true value is closer to $275 than to $29. Kudos to the buyer! 

10/09 Update: Apparently the seller was made aware of this posting and reneged on the original sale, telling the original buyer, a good friend of mine, that she had let her sister handle the listing in error. This unscrupulous seller then went on to tell the buyer that her sister had subsequently sold the diecut to another person. Can you believe this? I encouraged the buyer to lodge a complaint with Ebay, advice that was followed. I know that I'll never deal with this jerk of a seller.  

RARE VINTAGE HALLOWEEN DENNISON JACK-O-LANTERN GARLAND ~ 67" LONG ~ 20'S, 30'S

This seldom-seen garland was made by Dennison and marketed as "String Em Outs." The set in my collection can be seen on page 250. It has 27 connected JOLs plus the original envelope. This item was referred to in Dennison's 1926 Price List pamphlet as having a stock number of H115.  

Vintage Halloween Tales book by Ethel Owen 1928 Hallowe'en Tales

I have noticed that the prices for these hard-cover books that celebrate Halloween have been increasing fairly quickly this year, qualifying as a new genre of our fine hobby. This particular item seemed particularly nice given its bright coloration, its dust jacket and the strong cover imagery as well as the pleasing end papers. Still, given that the interior verbiage is mostly pablum, I am surprised that this is a developing trend. I am sure the sellers, good friends and long on my list of those with whom I prefer doing business, were pleasantly surprised by its ending price.