My earliest memories of honeycomb holiday decorations are of the Hallmark Thanksgiving Turkey my mom would put out as a centerpiece on our dining room table. My sister and I would fight over who got to assemble it. We didn't have any Halloween decorations outside of my own drawings and school art projects.
It wouldn't be until as an adult I began collecting vintage Halloween I would discover how many different honeycomb Halloween decorations were produced. I'll be showing some of those I found over the past year in upcoming posts. Today, we'll start with the old reliable pumpkin. "25" is stamped on this particular pumpkin reflecting the original price of a quarter.
These cardboard and tissue paper decorations look unassuming when collapsed.
But expand them and suddenly you have a pumpkin.
Given the fragile nature of these, it's amazing they survived. This particular honeycomb pumpkin was made by Beistle in the 1950's. The metal tabs shown in the second picture are how you keep the pumpkin open. When the two sides of cardboard are joined, you bend the tabs over the opposite side. For this reason, it's rare for the tabs to survive after years of flexing back and forth.
Perhaps this one survived because nobody was fighting over it!
ReplyDeleteVery astute...
DeleteKind of cool, never saw a pumpkin version. We have two orange and black spheres, like this. Still holding up after many years, but I do fold them and store them so that must help.
ReplyDeleteI know the spheres you're referring to. I love those.
Deletewow, that's in great shape, considering its age. usually the colors fade, too, even if the honeycomb doesn't get crushed or torn or whatever.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'll let you in on a secret; I got two of those at the same sale.
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