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Mark B. Ledenbach's vintage Halloween collectibles blog.

Vintage Round Crank Metal Halloween Noisemaker~Flying Witch Paper Face Cover

This is not a vintage item. It appears to me that someone made a color copy of the graphics on a well-known tambourine (probably made by Kirchhof), shrunk them, distressed the paper to make it appear old and glued it on to a non-Halloween ratchet with a plastic handle. The presence of a plastic handle indicates the ratchet was produced in the 1960s. The tambourine from which the image was copied was made in the 1930s. It's too bad that this sold for $35 when it has decorative value - at best. 

"VINTAGE HALLOWEEN JOL1908-1932~GERMANY~CHILD'S JACK-O-LANTERN PORCELAIN TEA SET

I'm surprised this listing lasted as long as it did -and even then it was only a handful of hours. I was preparing to comment that someone should snap this up asap when the listing changed mid-post to indicate that someone had bought it. Kudos! This medium-sized tea cup is a just a tad harder to find than the smallest size, even though both are assigned a Relative Scarcity Index number of "3." The guide price, though, illustrates that difference. If you want to see the finest array of pieces from the various sized tea sets the Germans made early in the last century shown in any reference, pick up a copy of my newly revised and greatly enhanced third edition of Vintage Halloween Collectibles. 

Vintage Beistle Squirrel and Owl Die-cut, Rare Foil Embossed Halloween, USA

Beistle made a set of twelve diecuts beginning in 1932 and continuing through the early 1950s. Each was made very early in the run with this unusual color variation, rather than the more common versions with their coloration heavily represented with green. These early iterations are hard to find. The seller, different from so many on Ebay these days, actually has a reasonable opening price, so this may be a good time to acquire one of this variants for your collection. 

Vintage Halloween Attic Find

I wish I would have seen this lot offered at the extremely low BIN price of $159. Kudos to the fast mover. The two shades intrigue me. They look like Whitney, but I haven't seen other shades manufactured by Whitney, so they are surely Gibson. 

"VINTAGE HALLOWEEN CREPE PAPER~OWL HOLDS SMILING JOL IN HIS CLAW~1930 DENNISON"

Crepe paper has been a hot sub-genre over the last few years. With designs like the one this fine seller offered, I can see why! One superb way to display crepe designs is to frame them. My good friends, Tammy and Barry, will have several eye-catching crepe paper designs framed and ready to sell at the American Folk Art Festival at the Madonna Estate Winery in Napa, CA on Saturday, September 6th from 10-3. There will be several people selling an assortment of vintage Halloween: Bobbie Lasky, Kimberlee Edgar, the aforementioned Tammy and Barry, as well as yours truly. (I have quite a lot of great vintage items I'll be selling, plus copies of my new book - so come on by!) 

Antique 1920-30s German Painted Paper Mache DEVIL Head Halloween Candy Container

This is one of the better known fantasy pieces out there. The poor seller, in his description, sounds so excited to have found FOUR ALL AT ONCE! The person who sold them to him was probably happy to unload them. These began appearing in about 1995 and have wormed their way into many, many collections. (I see it taking up space in a distressingly high percentage of collections to which I am lucky to have access.) I, myself was fooled. A holiday dealer in business back then was Jenny Tarrant. She sold me one then refused to refund my money. That was a valuable lesson on several levels. Deal only with sellers who will guarantee authenticity forever. In any event, this is a purely decorative item with zero collectible value. Don't be fooled.