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Mark B. Ledenbach's vintage Halloween collectibles blog.

Early Beistle jointed Halloween skeleton with orange background

This attractive skeleton diecut with its unusual orange background was manufactured by Beistle during the early 1930s. It has an RSIN of 2, which surely accounts for why this item, suffering from some serious head damage, still brought $35.77. I tend to think the guide value of $75 for a near-mint example is a tad low given the recent strength of the skeleton diecut sub-genre.

Antique Halloween Crepe Paper Candy Bag Trick Or Treat By C.A. Reed Co Vintage

This vintage bag produced by Reed has nothing going for it - it is simply orange crepe with a sewn black section and a formed bottom. This sort of generic item is not coveted by collectors and typically wouldn't rustle up even $5. However, the seller, mesmerized by the age perhaps, has slapped a BIN of $99.99 on it. It conjures the opening words to a melancholy Anne Murray tune, "Dreamin, I must be dreamin..."

JACK-O-LANTERN HALLOWEEN CANDY CONTAINER VINTAGE (??) PULL TOY BAT CAT WITCH OWL

I haven't seen one of these come up for sale in some time. This slot-and-tab candy box was made by the Dolly Toy Company of Dayton, Ohio under their Fibro Toy line. The items were produced sporadically between 1934 and 1953, much less regularly than the witch pulling cart and cat pulling cart Fibro Toys. These are never marked for some reason. They have not yet been reproduced. It'll be fun to see what this brings! 

08/14 Update: This brought a healthy premium to guide value: $338.33 versus $250. 

Early Beistle Vintage Halloween Invitations with Owl Envelope Witch/Cat/Owl

The seller left considerable money on the table listing this with a BIN of $150. This is perhaps the earliest Beistle packaging I've seen and probably dates to 1918. (Beistle didn't even have their name on the envelope, or a stock number or even a witty description of the contents.) If I had seen this I would have excitedly added this to the collection. I would think that owlcreek15 could have gotten at least double, and perhaps more, than the $150 BIN price assigned!

VERY RARE Vintage Halloween Witch on a Broom Diecut Decoration Germany 1920s-30s

The seller describes this broomed witch diecut as having some light fading, but the fade is intentional. There were a number of diecut designs produced for a season or two that had this color finish to them. Collectors sometimes pass these by thinking they don't want something so faded by the sun, but this is a mistake. I know collectors who seek these "faux faded" diecuts out specifically for their collections. This diecut is hard-to-find in any finish: faux-faded, regular matte or regular glazed. 

08/07 Update: This brought $141.89, very close to guide value, $135, so I'm glad the bidders weren't mistakenly thinking it was faded. 

EARLY BLACK CAT HALLOWEEN CARDBOARD ACCORDION NOISEMAKER

I haven't seen this accordion-style noisemaker with handles before. Looking closely at the photos, the handles do appear as if they were originally with the noisemaker when produced. Virtually all of these sort of noisemakers I've seen with such handles were made in Japan, so it is possible that the original design was used by an unauthorized manufacturer in Japan which added these handles. (This is entirely conjecture on my part, however.) In any event, it is an interesting variant on a hard-to-find, typically German-made noisemaker. 

08/08 Update: This sold for $110, indicative of the fact the buyer felt it was made in Japan, in my opinion. 

VINTAGE GERMAN FORTUNE TELLING/MAGIC TYPE HALLOWEEN GAME-MIRACULUM

This dealer should know better than to list this item in eBay's Vintage Halloween category. It has nothing to do with Halloween. Some Halloween collectors do collect these fortune telling games, but the crossover only occurs when the game's imagery has some substantive or meaningful connection to Halloween. Other than an owl and a bat, this doesn't and therefore should be listed elsewhere. 

1928 Vintage Halloween Spookville Table Decoration

This result makes little sense to me. What you have is merely a remnant from one of Whitman's rather pedestrian Halloween pamphlets consisting of pages of cut-outs. The graphics are not that compelling, the paper stock is thin and one cannot escape the fact that it is merely a remnant. Now, granted, eBay has really offered little to get excited about overall for years, but surely there are better ways to spend $339. 

Vintage Halloween German Jack O' Lantern Pumpkin Tea Set Sugar Jar & Lid Germany

Every once in a while some stunning item surfaces on the world's most cluttered junk shop, eBay. This time it is this exceedingly rare German porcelain wonder made sometime between 1908 and 1932. The seller describes this as a lidded sugar, but I don't think that is correct. I feel this is a jam pot. This is only the third time I have seen this eye-catcher. The first time I bought what I saw - and now you can see it on page 120. The second time was an example with many repairs. This third example seems to be in collectible condition. Guide value is $900. If you collect these rare porcelain German items, don't let this one escape your grasp. 

07/30 Update: This fine piece sold for $1,495. Now, if you look at the bidding history, the price ratcheted from ~$778 to the final price in literally 5 seconds. Take out the top two bidders and the price drifts back to what I consider to be the sustainable level - ~$900-1,000. What do I mean by a sustainable level? When items that rarely appear for sale materialize in an auction setting, there is typically a small handful of collectors who have the desire and the deep pockets to bid "whatever it takes" to prevail upon an item. (For a splendid item like this, I can understand the "whatever it takes" mentality - and was operating under that principle myself for decades as a collector.) However, when that same item appears again, one of that handful is now sated and the energy needed to propel the price upward is either entirely missing or dissipated. Therefore, the ending price drifts down to what could be considered the norm for the piece. I have seen that time and time again. Three years ago, two large identical Johnny Pumpkins were listed on eBay with the auctions ending within 3 minutes of one another. The first one sold for ~$600 while the second one sold for about half that. So, the lesson in all this is that the ending price of $1,495 for this fantastic jam pot is really not what another one would fetch. The seller happened to be lucky in that one hasn't been available for many years and therefore reaped the benefits of scarcity. If another one was to be listed next month, it would almost surely sell for what I consider the sustainable price to be - ~$900-1,000. 

Rare Vintage Halloween Dancing Cats Centerpiece

I'm glad to see such great Gibson enveloped products being offered. (Ebay really has been a wasteland overall for a long time now.) This dancing cat four-sided centerpiece was made by Gibson during the later 1920s. The seller, a very nice person and long-time collector, is correct to point out that these centerpieces don't surface often in complete, mint condition. Almost always one or more of the delicate tabs are ripped clean off. Given that the envelope is also part of the package, both parties to the transaction should be happy with the final purchase price of $200. (eBay shows $225 but the BIN offer accepted was $200.) 

Vintage Halloween German Pumpkin Germany Jack O' Lantern Tea Set. Sugar Jar

Demand for the unusual pieces to the various-sized German tea sets remains strong evidenced by this result. Although I cannot be sure how this piece was meant to be used, I'm pretty sure it wasn't as a sugar jar. There would be a lid for that and this wasn't designed to be a lidded piece. Given that there is a hole in its bottom the ending price seems much too high to me. Looking at the bidding history, only one person kept bidding against a bid that was placed on July 10th. Only during the final minute did another entity make a play for the item, bidding it up to the precise level that the bidder from July 10th bid at that time. 

08/04 Update: Hmmmm, what happened here? I see that this was relisted on August 1st and quickly sold for $250. Did the original buyer on July 14th back out of the deal? 

1920 SET OF 5 PUMPKIN HEAD FAVORS IN ENVELOP MADE IN USA BLACK CAT

The prevailing bidder made a smart purchase of this rare enveloped set, although the price ended higher than I would have forecast. Beistle made three iterations of the smallest of their Johnny Pumpkin family of diecuts. The ones sold in this lot represent the third and rarest of the iterations. As I write on page 123, "This is the final variant of this size. These are smaller, brighter and have no easels. Instead, there is a prop that unfolds from the side enabling the item to stand." These were made during the span 1923-1925. The set shown in the reference was made later during that range, while this one was made earlier during that range. How is this determined? Beistle's first inclination was to issue things in somewhat plain envelopes, with envelopes getting more ornate during the production run. Check out the differences. 

Halloween Clock Beistle 1923 Very Rare Nice Shape

This 1923 fairy clock diecut manufactured by Beistle is a real eye-catcher. Imposing, brightly colored and pretty far out there in terms of overall imagery, this diecut doesn't come up for sale very often - perhaps twice a year on eBay. With all that in mind, I was surprised that it didn't fetch more. The seller did a good job at pointing out the blemishes, and there were many, but all in all I would have expected this to fetch in the $500-600 range.