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Mark B. Ledenbach's vintage Halloween collectibles blog.

***RARE*** Vintage Halloween Witch With Fire & Broom Celluloid Viscoloid

One of my wishes relative to eBay is that they would choose to become more transparent about what items fetch when a “Best Offer” is involved. This listing shows a celluloid piece in less than pristine condition with what I thought was an offer price that would never be attained. Although the asking price of $2999.99 wasn’t gotten, what was the actual price at which the witch changed hands?

1950s Halloween FANNY FARMER Flying CHOCOLATE WITCH Candy Box Vintage Container

This is being offered in an auction setting with a minimum opening bid of $225. Really? This is a great example of sellers offering items with an inflated, wide-eyed view of what items will bring. I can see this pleasing example of Halloween ephemera selling for $75-95. Remember, this is the box only. The seller has listed the witch container in a separate listing with an opening price of $105.

SCARCE Vintage Halloween Porcelain Jack o' Lantern Tea Set Cup Germany 1914-32!!

This wonderful seller is right - collectors who have discovered the visual allure of the Halloween tea set line produced in Germany from 1908 through 1932 buy and hold. Pieces, especially the cups without handles, once surfaced with some regularity, but like someone without enough roughage, that regularity is now missing! When you see these, especially solid examples offered by trust-worthy sellers, both of which we have here, snap them up.

Awesome US ZONE GERMANY Halloween Composition JOL Pumpkin Head Clown

This listing yields at least two interesting things. I guess some Veggie figurals were produced post-WWII. Looking at the figural’s paint and the circular paper bottom there is nothing to differentiate it from others produced up to 2+ decades before. The other is the labels themselves. Look at how small and impermanent they are. If they were to be removed - and it would be so easy to remove them - there would be nothing to guide you from concluding it was produced as early as the 1920s. It doesn’t appear as if there is a stamped ink mark on the bottom. Interesting…

Vintage Halloween tin TAMBOURINE NOISEMAKER bat cat moon metal fabric paper skin

OK, this is a mash-up. This tin tambourine design was only produced with a decorated rim and plain taut paper front. The bit of crepe paper showing a broomed witch was added by some industrious person post-purchase no doubt wanting to make what is a plain front more visually interesting.

02/10 Update: This sold for $61.88, higher than I would have thought for an object that’s purely decorative.

Vintage Old Halloween Beistle Die Cut Shaker Whistle Noisemaker JOL Pumpkin

This noisemaker and the other two designs this seller is peddling are from the mid-to-late 1990s. They were imported new into the US by Blumchens. The seller uses the word “vintage” but doesn’t define it. I suppose in some universe an item that is at most 27 years old could be described as vintage, but I would use more specificity, like “newish” or “from the 1990s.”

Antique Old Halloween Dennison Place Card, RARE JOL Parrot Die Cut 3.75x4"

Boy, I sure wish I had seen this incredibly rare Dennison place card. Dennison produced great designs full of humor and whimsy. After about 1930 their production decreased dramatically due to the Great Depression. I assume this charming design was produced then. I had never seen this one before. I regret missing this listing.

1/31 Update: I contacted the seller, zipstoys, on the off chance they might have another one of these fantastic place cards. To my pleasant shock, they had one more. I purchased it for $200 total, with shipping and tax.

3 OLD HALLOWEEN BLACK CATS & JACK-O-LANTERN PRESSED PAPER PULP HANGING ORNAMENTS

The buyer of this lot of three German diecuts got a bargain. If these had been listed under “Vintage Halloween” rather than “Old Halloween” they would have received more action. The seller might have seen more, too, by listing them separately. The one on the right, the distressed maid with bangs, is the star of the lot. That alone should have reached what the entire lot brought.

Vintage 1940's Halloween Devil Lantern 2 Sided Cardboard

This is an example of what I strongly dislike about sellers on eBay. They know just enough to mistakenly think that any piece of vintage Halloween, no matter how poor the condition, is worth a fortune. This seller is offering this not uncommon devil head lantern produced by Dolly Toy for a whopping $249. Just look at the condition. There are significant pieces missing and an irregular hole at the bottom. The seller claims there are creases on the corners but they are all intact. That’s not what their photos show. This item perhaps could be bought for parts for no more than $30-40.

Instagram

Hello Blog Readers,
At the repeated suggestion of a close friend and fellow Halloween collector, I decided to join Instagram yesterday. I don’t have much content up in just the one day, but will add some each day. If you’d like to see what I post, please look for “markbledenbach” on that site. (I may change my user name if I can figure out how to do it!)
MBL

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.