This is an interesting item. I think it shows how much leeway Beistle gave their wholesaling partners - allowing them to adopt Beistle’s graphical style while placing an assortment of thematically unrelated items together in what is essentially a grab bag. If you look at any of the many wholesalers’ catalogs from the 1930s through the 1950s, the main provider of goods is Beistle. The ending price seems reasonable. The header card is the rarest element.
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Mark B. Ledenbach's vintage Halloween collectibles blog.
1920's Fabricius Mercantile Halloween Novelty Catalog, Rare!
I love wholesaler catalogs as they can give an insight into when things were made and how widespread was the distribution of goods. Fabricius Mercantile was a small-fry outfit in St. Louis. Once the founder's son died in 1919, his two sons took over and renamed the business Fabricius Mercantile. It lasted only until 1936. Catalogs from them are quite hard to find. This catalog seems to be from about 1932 based on the Beistle goods shown on one of the pages. The page showing the candy containers and horns show goods predominantly made in Japan. All in all a great catalog bought for a good price.
VINTAGE 1950's HALLOWEEN United Novelty Mfg. Co. Catalog Christmas and Others
The United Novelty Manufacturing Company was just one of many, many wholesalers that existed as the final distribution channel for original manufacturers like Beistle. In fact, Beistle was the primary supplier to the wholesale supply segment relative to holiday decorations. I have examined each of these pages and cannot find a single example of an item made by a firm other than Beistle. This catalog is from ~1958-1963, evidenced by the numeral, 22, right after Chicago in the address line. These short city codes were used at that time as a sort of "proto-zip code" before the formal introduction of zip codes in the summer of 1963. Given the merchandise offered in these pages, I'd more narrowly estimate the catalog was issued in 1959. These catalogs are quite useful in helping date when items were originally produced. Since Beistle did not target the wholesale market as its primary distribution channel, in many cases at least one year went by between the date of an item's original manufacture and when it began appearing for sale by a wholesaler.
