Vintage Halloween Collectibles Research (1900-1979)

THR Halloween Collector Guides 2nd Anniversary Review As of July 2025 (two years since THR's first book release) there are now five  guidebooks available on the subject of vintage Halloween collectibles! There are  four volumes of The Halloween Retrospect digests as well as one art survey Halloween Artifacts  and there is more material under development for the near future! Regardless of whether it is a digest or survey, all are created for Halloween collector's book shelves to offer different types of references material on the vintage Halloween market via primary sources (mainly on-hand ~635 catalogs as well as material from archives and libraries across the United States), Guidebooks for the vintage Halloween collector with a focus on vintage research through vintage sources. If catching up to The Halloween Retrospect archive library as an independent publisher, see the  Home page  (of the THR website) for an intro including two years worth o...

Retro Fab Halloween: Wonder what great references exist for the vintage collectibles of Dennison's vintage ephemera? I often find it's best to look back at some of the original material of the era, and collectors are lucky that Dennison produced a ton of promotional material we can use today as primary sources.  Yes, in it's day, Dennison publishes a long string of annual Halloween-devoted books to help sell their products - from the  Bogie Book  of the 1910-1920's, to the later 1920's Halloween-themed editions of  Parties and Party Magazine , to the somewhat strained hurrahs in the 1930's with seasonal titles like The Halloween Book  (see Dennison Halloween Number) . And the company kept active well into the mid-century and beyond. However, for collectible guidebook  The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 2  a cut-off date was necessary to fit contents of an 11"x17" fold-out poster: "Dennison's Halloween 1909-1935 Autumn Publications & Serial ...

Sane Halloween Observer Wonderful illustration! Cover of The Home Friend Magazine , October 1930. Click image below to enlarge. More amazing covers and illustrations can be seen here:

Sane Halloween Observer If you look beyond catalogs (like Dennison's Bogie Books ), there exist a ton of wonderful vintage imagery appearing in magazines, early readers, and comics, etc., receiving little attention for valuation. I'm guessing this is because the content of these various publications is not completely devoted to the holiday, nor tied to the decor that people love to collect and display. So a beginning budget-conscious collector can find some real gems!   One of my favorite vintage covers is this single panel scene of sight-gags created by Graham Hunter for Treasure Chest (of Fun and Fact) Comic Book Vol 4 No. 4. October 19, 1948. A search engine will lead you to a number of his covers (and for other holidays) that are just as much fun! There's so many brilliant details inside of this one piece, that you don't mind the lack of any Halloween content in the rest of this Catholic comic book series. Wouldn't it be fantastic if one day someone g...