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Mark B. Ledenbach's vintage Halloween collectibles blog.

Vintage Halloween Embossed Flying Witch Die Cut Germany 1920s/30s

This is one large diecut, measuring ~16” high by ~14.5” across. The comment I want to make is about condition. This large highly embossed decoration is in what I would consider “normal” condition. I’ve been a collector since 1988 with a penchant for condition, but sometimes it is too easy to forget that such examples in near mint or better condition are truly rare, and a pleasant surprise when you see one. I sold the example in my book on page 178 in May 2020 for $302 when I judged the condition as not being high enough for it to remain part of the collection. Was that dumb? No. Condition is key for me, perhaps more so than with many other collectors. Each of our condition thresholds differ. I try not to lose sight of the fact that vintage Halloween items were generally not viewed as things to be saved/preserved, hence the rarity of near mint or better pieces. When I first looked at this listing I thought that the condition was only “good,” but that was a reflex based on my threshold. The reality is that virtually all collectors would find this example a totally acceptable candidate for their collections - and that is the way it should be.
I spent last weekend in the greater Los Angeles region attending a toy and advertising show in Glendale, with fun forays to visit collectors in La Verne and Whittier. There was virtually no Halloween at the show except those items you’d fully expect to see at a show. That really underscored how rare items are for our fun hobby. I look around at my collection and am thankful I’ve been able to find what I’ve found. I hope you do the same for your collections.

Dennisons Bogie Book Halloween 1926 Vintage How to Entertain Costumes Party Idea

The 1926 Dennison Bogie Book is arguably the most common one of all. If you are going to see one for sale it will invariably be this edition. The later Bogies and their differently named brethren become much less of a rich resource for archivist collectors like me. The detailed annual offering of wares shown in the earlier Bogies disappear, replaced by illustrations and other generic pablum. Dennison moved the detail to the Price List pamphlets, so these elusive publications become much more of a resource to those interested in understanding what was produced when. The collecting market has finally awakened to this reality as prices for the Price List pamphlets have escalated. (I feel they have much more room to run.)
The price for this edition, even in very-fine-plus condition or better, typically never reaches the lofty height this listing is requesting.

Vintage Antique Beistle Halloween Decoration Lantern. Very Rich Colors!

It is nicely refreshing to see a quality item or two amongst the endless river of dreck that eBay has become. Sadly, eBay has become a waste of time for serious collectors. There is just too much crap to wade through now that the holiday categories have been ill-advisedly collapsed into one big, frustrating jumble. However, I digress…
This lantern is a sight for sore eyes. I love the rich coloration and the seemingly perfect inserts. Yes, the top connector shows wear and the bottom has become separated, but the former doesn’t matter much (It is more important that it is actually present.) and the latter can be easily mended by any competent restorer.
I applaud this seller’s style for starting this precious item at 99 cents rather than starting the bidding at an already fully valued sham price. (Too many sellers engage in this dodgy stratagem that fools no one.) The same seller has a great Beistle Jack-O-Lantern Fortune Game up for auction. Be sure to check it out.

01/21/Update: The euphoria of seeing such a nice item amidst the crapola almost certainly prodded this ending price to an unsustainable high of $3,627.11!

vintage Halloween plastic PUMPKIN JOL WITCH CAT CANDY HOLDER container

It seems that hard plastic has been on a bit of a tear of late, but even so, this result is surprising. (Values for blow molds from the 1960s have moved sharply upward during the last ~2 years - a related market segment.) There are a handful of hard plastic items that are nearly ubiquitous - and this is one of them. Seeing this fetch $50 is startling. Typical pricing is $20-30.
I’ve never collected hard plastic, as the market segment generally doesn’t appeal to me. However, I have grown fond of most of the Kokomold line from Elkhart, Indiana.

VINTAGE ROSEN CANDY SUCKER DIE CUT HOLDER HALLOWEEN CARD TRIX TREAT OWL BAT POEM

The once ubiquitous Rosen Trix or Treats cards are seen less frequently these days - a statement I’ve been spouting for the last few years about vintage Halloween in general. Know that all three of the Rosen sets plus their assorted variants are commanding strong dollars. These two great cards comprising the eBay lot are from the first such set Rosen produced, a set of six that I’ve called Set A. Sets B and C are comprised of five cards each - and the dimensions of these cards are smaller than any card from Set A. Set B cards with their blue backgrounds seem to be the most coveted - with the dancing skeleton card from this set commanding the strongest dollars, followed closely by the graveyard card. You can see all of these cards on pages 90-92.

2022 Auction - Early Information

Hello there and Happy New Year!

My annual auction of vintage Halloween items will end on Sunday, March 6th. There will be around 110 lots this cycle to tempt collectors at every level. Stay tuned for more details over these next few weeks.

Best, MBL

Bertoia Auction Results

Bertoia Auctions conducted their Fall Sale in mid-November. They had a very nice selection of vintage Halloween items, at least four of which sold through Morphy Auctions in September 2010. From the results, one could safely conclude the market has considerably strengthened over these eleven years.

Bertoia lots 1151, 1152, 1193 and 1194 sold in 2010 through Morphy for respectively $3,163; $1,610; $4,312 and $3,738. Here are the 2021 results without the 20% buyer’s premium realized for these lots in the same order: $10,000, $1,500, $15,000 and $11,000!

Another lot, 1148, was placed on the cover and realized an astounding $21,000 without the buyer’s premium.

Another lot, 1181, was a winking JOL candy container. It is only the second I’ve ever seen aside from the one in the collection. Even though it appears as if the nose of this lot may have been replaced, it still fetched $5,500 without buyer’s premium. When examining the photos there seems to be a color mismatch at the base of the nose and where the nose attaches to the face.

Morphy has an auction with a nice selection of vintage Halloween that will go under the hammer on December 2nd. Two of the items come from my collection and are designated as such.

Evolution of Beistle's Party Sets

I recently acquired this Beistle enveloped party set, complete with all contents. In examining it closely, I realized that I may have gained an insight into the evolution of Beistle’s efforts to create party sets. Their first effort was no doubt for the 1918 season. That example is shown on page 217, upper left. The enveloped Complete Party Outfit shown on the same page at the upper right was attributed to 1922. I know now this is an error. (In reading the marketing verbiage more carefully in a copy of a 1921 Beistle catalog for retail shop owners, it clearly states that that enveloped set enjoyed great sales in the two previous seasons - 1919 and 1920. They continued to offer this set for the 1921 season, too. I have updated the book’s errata page.) I believe now that the enveloped set shown below was offered for the 1922 season only. It represents the earliest evidence of Beistle’s fairy motif mania that reached full bloom the following year. The set shown below, also shown in Campanelli’s great reference on page 112, has larger invitations, nut cups and fortune place cards than one sees starting with the 1923 effort. The 1922 iteration also included a fortune puzzle that was quickly dropped, not to be included in any party set going forward. Now, we all know that Beistle scored a home run with their party sets that first appeared in 1923. Their first iteration was a boxed set with slightly different verbiage from the sets much more commonly seen. That first iteration lasted for perhaps a month, and is truly rare. Once Beistle settled on the final cover verbiage and adopted what would become a smaller but standard sizing for the invitations, nut cups and fortune place cards, they pumped out significant quantities of the 1923 party set in three forms: boxed, enveloped and in the form of a booklet, which itself had two iterations - one with white pages and one with orange pages. Interesting, huh?

Rare 1935 German Halloween diecut Cat & Boys & Girls hand in hand against fence.

I’ve had several email exchanges with the wonderful seller of this rare German fence diecut. She saw the article in a recent issue of Antique Trader listing my ten favorite vintage Halloween items. One of them, this diecut fence design, I valued at $4,500. That estimated value prompted her to list the fence diecut she acquired ~30 years ago from an estate sale, wherein she and a business partner acquired a box of vintage Halloween items for pocket change. She told me that through a thrift or antique shop she used to run with that partner, all of the Halloween items acquired that day were long ago sold - except the fence. She listed the diecut on eBay with a “make an offer” feature. She said she received multiple offers in the $2,000 range (c’mon people!) and declined them all until someone stepped up and paid very close to my estimate in the Antique Trader. Although she received a market price for the rarity, nonetheless she was sad to see it packaged up and sent away to the savvy buyer. (I say savvy because when something this rare pops up, you pay up. Those offering a pittance for a treasure hoping to snag a bargain happily lost out.

Now, eBay’s increasingly opaque system shows the fence diecut selling for $1,000. Reading this post, you know now that is inaccurate. (I strongly dislike the opaque approach eBay takes to reporting actual selling prices. It is a true detriment to understanding the foibles of the secondary markets.)

This diecut is rare enough that I wasn’t able to locate one good enough for the collection until just 2-3 years ago. Know that these diecuts were shipped folded. The fold line is between the second and third figures. Although there aren’t too many complete examples extant, many of the ones I’ve seen have separated at this fold line. Many, too, are missing the left-most figure for some reason.

Happy Halloween!

The Happiest of Halloweens to my faithful readers! I hope tomorrow is a fun-filled day.

Article in Antique Trader

The Antique Trader, a superb magazine for the general collector, has been revitalized under the stewardship of its editor, Paul Kennedy. His gently humorous column is my first stop and is worth the modest subscription price all on its own.

In its most recent issue was an article profiling my ten favorite items in the collection. I’ve been avidly and aggressively collecting since 1988 and have been very fortunate to have put together a well-curated collection that brings me much joy. It was difficult selecting just ten items, but I did it. Here is the link to the article: https://www.antiquetrader.com/collectibles/ten-greatest-halloween-collectibles

Vintage Halloween Nut/Candy Cups Set of 2

This nut cup design has long ranked as one of my favorites. It uses non-traditional colors with solid Halloween imagery to create an eye-catching and intricate item. Here’s a chance to own two at once! The seller is a gem. She was one of the earliest friends I made in the Halloween collecting community, forged over a shared love of well-crafted Halloween folk art. You can buy from her without hesitation.

Although I am not 100% sure, I think this nut cup was made by Gibson. It is stylistically similar to known Gibson items, but I can’t find it in any catalogs.

11/02 Update: Thanks to the inestimable Cindy Vogel, I can now confirm that this beautiful nut cup was, in fact, produced by Gibson. It was sold with stock number 1908. Thanks, Cindy!