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Mark B. Ledenbach's vintage Halloween collectibles blog.

Vintage Halloween Skeleton Jack o lantern Owl Cats Lot

I sure wish I could have been at that estate sale and snatched these items right up! The buyer almost surely got a tremendous bargain. Not only are the 1930-1 Beistle lanterns a key find, but the assortment of German diecuts is quite nice. Don’t let the small bat escape your notice. The lot has already been bid up to $356. It has a lot of room to run.

vintage halloween decorations pre1960

This seller has several interesting assorted lots up for auction. The star of this lot is the gourd-shaped Beistle diecut, which seems to be intact and in collectible condition. Bear in mind that there are material issues with several items: the three-sided Gibson JOL shade is missing its black top-piece that serves to hold the lantern together, the Beistle walking witch diecut has no legs and the bottom ends of the large Beistle diecut of a cat with a smiling moon behind have been trimmed. I’d advise bidding accordingly.

07/29 Update: This sold for much more than I would have expected - $710!

5 New Old Stock Bagged Vintage Halloween Decorations. Cats, Witch and Scarecrow!

This assortment consists of designs originally conceived by Beistle but later copied by the Japanese. Whether this copying was done with Beistle's cooperation, or even knowledge, is not known. These copies were done in the latter half of the 1960s and have very modest value as the ending price for this lot was $49.95. The older originals, clearly marked "Made in USA," have greater value.