Catalog Books & Archives
Catalog Books & Archives:
The archivist/librarian has been on a two-week excursion visiting museums, but is back now to catch up on a couple of recent entries over at The Halloween Retrospect concerning various archives and books that are available to people researching the vintage markets.
Vintage Halloween Catalog Book
First, I wanted to recommend to anyone who is really starting to dig more deeply into the actual data of vintage Halloween collectibles, this 2003 publication by Ben Truwe The Halloween Catalog Collection: 55 Catalogs from the Golden Age of Halloween. It's chockablock full of pages from vintage Halloween catalogs ranging in years circa 1900-1979 - and there is more about this book and author in the blog over at The Halloween Retrospect: see Truwe's Catalog Book. 
While previously available in both book and compact disc, it sadly appears it is out-of-print in all past formats. The only manner of finding a copy currently is trying to find one in the overheated collectibles market, and it is hoped in future that the author will perhaps re-release this wonderful field guide.
Why again was this book so influential, perhaps more so than the visually-rich guides that help identify such products? It is because this contains the original old catalogs of the day that we would call primary sources, or data that is original to the time period of the items of interest, and therefore helps identify inconsistencies existing in modern publications. For example, see a previous blog entry as The Sane Halloween Observer (April 8, 2018) called "Timeline for Witches".
Cover art for The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 1 by Bindlegrim
The article mentioned above has been re-written for The Halloween Retrospect, Volume One - and in that version expands the sampling capability by utilizing the nearly 500 catalogs on-hand at the archive. Note again, that the book is a 9" x 6" publication, sized much like those old novelty catalogs, and is sure to have some good info for those into vintage Halloween collectibles, with a few color and black and white illustrations to break up all those words spread across 32 pages. It can be purchased on etsy.
Published only days before the archivist/librarian took off for travels, this blog entry (Western Novelty Co.) was quickly added on September 7th to The Halloween Retrospect (and expands on some of the information from a short article found in the guidebook The Halloween Retrospect, Volume One. The blog entry basically mentions the amazing anomaly that the archive at History Colorado in Denver holds what appears to be the full record of print catalogs from this company, dating circa 1920's to 1990's.
Regardless of whether you are into Halloween collectibles or researching some other knick-knack premium speciality produced during that era of American entertainments, this archive catalog collection is recommended!
Regardless of whether you are into Halloween collectibles or researching some other knick-knack premium speciality produced during that era of American entertainments, this archive catalog collection is recommended!