The Halloween Retrospect

What is The Halloween Retrospect archive library and its in-house magazine publication The Halloween Retrospect? 

The Halloween Retrospect archive library is a shelf-load of vintage sources 1900-1979 that (as of 12-2023) number a little over 520 vintage catalogs, with additional books, magazines, advertisements, and more. These are resources that have been collected over the past decade-plus as primary sources that portray the original market that has become today’s vintage Halloween collectibles.

In recent blog entry What Next? the news was recently shared that The Sane Halloween Observer blog of vintage Halloween collectibles is changing in support of The Halloween Retrospect archive library that extends and digs more deeply in the subject of the vintage Halloween marketplace. While some blog content originated here, the recent print publication advances those ideas even further, though there will still be interesting facts, items, or images that find there way here instead of the print publication (due to size, edits, etc.). 

The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 1

The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 2

Volume One and Volume Two are for sale via Etsy (see details including table of contents here) and each comes with various inserts such as 11"x17" fold out posters, and novelty cards. The book itself 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.