Halloween is more fun than scary these days. And what used to be a holiday for kids has been taken over by many grown-ups as an excuse for to let off some steam with a bit of innocent merriment.
As Halloween becomes more popular, so has interest in antique and vintage Halloween-related items expanded, and not all of those collectibles are so innocently merry.
Prior to World War II, Halloween was a minor holiday, when children bobbed for apples, wore homemade costumes, played blind man’s bluff, and played fortune telling games.
The horror movies of the 1930s would make the holiday a bit scarier, but it wasn’t until after the war that Halloween’s popularity began to soar. The golden age of Halloween collectibles is the 1950s and ’60s, when mass production flooded the stores with the ready-made costumes, decorations and noisemakers that have become today’s collectibles.
Since many of these items were made of flimsy materials like tin lithographs, paper, papier-mache and plastics, they didn’t survive, making what’s left even more valuable. All Halloween items, including the boxed costumes (mostly made by Ben Cooper and Collegeville), have to be in mint condition to be considered collectible.
As much fun as Halloween is, however, there’s no escaping the fact that it’s still about death, and death-related items have always had their collectors. Today, such items are most often called “Postmortems,” but they have also been known as “Moribunda” and “Thanatopiana.”
Innocently, these are the items of an “Adams Family” home or an Edward Gorey print – crematory urns, caskets, tombstones. There is also Victorian Moribunda, like mourning jewelry (often made with a lock of the deceased hair), or postmortem photographs, especially those heart-wrenching ones that are evidence of the Era’s high rate of child mortality.
Collectors also look for antique embalming vessels and instruments, funeral ceremony and funeral parlor items, artful death certificates, books and prints and other artwork depicting death (natural of not), and funeral rites.
If you are curious, a couple of web sites you might check out include www.teardropmemories.blogspot.com and www. morticiasmorgue.com.
For today, we’ll confine our appraisals to the vintage fun stuff.
Appraisals: Costumes: The Flash, Cooper, 1966 ($35); Lily Munster, Cooper ($200); Bart Maverick, Collegeville, 1959 ($85); Lost in Space, 1966 ($250), Flash Gordon, Collegeville ($40); Robin Hood, 1955 ($100); Captain Action-Phantom, 1960s ($90).
Candy Containers: Pez Witch ($165); Witch in shoe, papier-mache ($660); Witch on pumpkin, Germany, 3-inches ($295); Jack-O’-Lantern, articulated head, Germany, 6-5/8-inches ($625).
Other Halloween Collectibles: Jack-O’-Lanterns, Germany, 1920s-’40s, papier-mache, 3 to 7-inches ($85 to $300); Friction toy, witch on pumpkin, plastic ($30); Tambourine, black cats on pumpkin, 6-inches ($50-$85); Mask, Darth Vader, with box ($125); Figurine, die-cut black cat on moon, 12 x 14-inches ($50); Post Cards (about $5 each but some, especially those by famous illustrators, can run into the hundreds of dollars).
Arthur Schwerdt, a certified appraiser, is the author of “The Antique Story Book: Finding the Real Value of Old Things,” and co-owner of The August Farmhouse antiques on Route 9 in Swainton. Send your comments, questions and appraisal requests to: acshwerdt@cmcherald.com.
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