Rust Craft was a small paper manufacturer out of Boston, Massachusetts. They began in 1906 and lumbered through until merging with Norcross in 1981. In terms of their Halloween output, their Golden Age, shared with so many other manufacturers, was the 1920s. Collectors began noticing the eccentricity of their designs perhaps five years ago. Their output was small relative to Beistle, Dennison and Gibson (in that order) so opportunities to buy Rust Craft items from the 1920s in near-mint or better condition aren’t plentiful. This tally sold yesterday for a sum undreamt of just a few years ago. I feel the value runway for Rust Craft small paper is long, so if you like their design aesthetic, plan on buying now rather than later. Rust Craft was disciplined about marking their wares and assigning stock numbers to them, but not always. I feel that in the first season they decided to take the Halloween plunge they hadn’t codified their design aesthetic. (I haven’t been able to pinpoint that precise year.) Pieces I suspect were made by Rust Craft then have a larger form factor, a simple color and design scheme and are sometimes hand-stamped “Made in USA.” I think this “loosey-goosey” period lasted maybe up to one season.
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Mark B. Ledenbach's vintage Halloween collectibles blog.
