Vintage Halloween Collectibles Research (1900-1979)

Sane Halloween Observer As more and more vintage Halloween (the stuff no one was said to have retained) continues to crawl out of the woodwork, there have been haunting miscalculations of authenticity of paper items during the past few years, and the 2018 season is sadly no different The problem seems to be a continuing knowledge gap about what a diecut actually is, and how to spot either fakes and/or altered pieces. And this season was again proof that  as a buyer  you need some good initial knowledge of true vintage (in any medium) as apparently both field expert and recommended seller prove that nobody is perfect. As a subject introduction, I would point you to an earlier entry that introduces the concept and process of the diecut:  Halloween Diecut Quiz . While in the entry that follows here, I will show you examples of true diecuts. I trust that once you know how to spot true paper, you should in theory be able to recognize the opposite. In our first occ...

Sane Halloween Observer As a collector of vintage Halloween, I feel it is worth the extra steps to research the minutiae of these items' history for myself. And of the types of decor, this blog has frequently reflected on German imports (specifically time discrepancies per dates in modern guidebooks) --- but how about the historical availability of American-made merchandise? Mulling over vintage catalogs now for both German and the U.S., I started to consider the creation of a timeline that would test the reference dates provided in various guides. Therefore this entry is an exercise, perhaps proving the wisdom in expanding one's available resources. And again I would stress that much of the content here (as with previously presented German catalogs) is pulled directly from archival records. Following then are two timelines for two different witches --- American and German. First up is this iconic witch (one-sided at 15"x23") by Beistle described in one ...