Rosbro Scarecrow

Back in my first post of the season, I mentioned I'd found a grail this year that I'd been on the hunt for for years.  I went to a sale last spring that promised vintage Halloween.  I showed up maybe an hour after the sale had opened and found the Halloween in the basement.  It had already been gone through, but there were still a few good items I picked up including some Gurley candles (stay tuned for a later post). My daughter and I were both at the sale and thought we had looked through everything before finally checking out and leaving.

I went back the next day thinking I might pick up a few other remaining items at 50% off.  I went back down in the basement where the Halloween items had been and found this guy sitting on the shelf, plain as day.

Halloween Greetings

Over the summer, I picked up a couple of scrap books from a garage sale.  They appeared to have belonged to a young girl through her teenage years and probably date from the late 1960's to the mid to late 1970's.  Within the pages, she saved greeting cards and other memorabilia you would expect.  She had a fairly good collection of Halloween cards, so I extracted those.  The cards were well glued down, so extraction was more successful on some than others.

Being of this era, most of the cards are of the "cutesy" kind.  A number of the cards were of the "insult" variety which was common with cards of this era as well.  Some I only scanned the front of, others that involved a punchline, I also scanned the interior.  Enjoy!

A Halloween Ink-Link

I found this company newsletter for American-Associated Insurance Companies.  It's called the "Ink-Link" and is dated October 1952.

Beistle Nite-Glo Ghost Diecuts

This trio of glow-in-the-dark ghosts comes from Beistle in the 1980's and were known as Nite-Glo Ghosts.

This Blud's for You

 I couldn't find an exact year on these buttons, but they appear to be from the 90's, which I must continue to remind myself was 30 years ago.

Halloween Revisited -- Dynamite Monster Bash

 

Enjoy a relaxing Sunday with Count Morbida and this re-post from 2016.

Dynamite was one of my staple orders from Scholastic Books when I was a kid.  And one of my favorite parts of the magazine was always Count Morbida.  This issue from 1975 dates a little prior to when I started reading it, but I was fortunate to come across it along with several other issues at an estate sale this summer.  It's issue number twelve and it devotes a large section to planning a Monster Bash.  Maybe you can use some of these for your Halloween party this year.

Halloween Revisited -- A Monster Mask Mystery

I originally posted this October 5th, 2015.  When I repost these, I just copy and paste from the original post as I don't want to actually repost the original  because that changes the post date and puts it out of the original sequence of posts.  And to recreate a post with this many photos defeats the reason behind "Halloween Revisited" which is "I'm lazy".  So I apologize if this shows up with weird format/font/etc.  I'll fix if I see that it does.

Sometimes when I start writing a post, it begins as one thing and ends as another.  Initially, this post was about trying to identify a mask, but it turned into a tangential examination of Halloween masks used in classic television shows and movies I recall fondly from my childhood.  In other words, I'm easily distracted.

Last spring, I drove a fair distance to attend what appeared to be an enormous estate sale chock full of retro goodies.  What particularly caught my eye in the ads for the sale were numerous Ben Cooper/Collegeville plastic Halloween masks. Once inside and after fighting my way through the crowd, I finally found the room with the masks, just in time to see a lady grabbing every plastic mask there. I pushed toward her to see if she'd left any, but she hadn't.  However, she had passed on a rubber mask which I grabbed.

Halloween's a Scream

When I first started decorating my house for Halloween in the 90's, it was pretty low-key.  I didn't have a lot of decorations, vintage or otherwise.  At some point, I picked up a screaming door mat from somewhere, probably one of the Halloween stores like Spirit Halloween, Halloween City or Halloween Express.  I would put it under the normal front door mat and watch people jump when they came to my front door.  That mat is long gone, but I found one still in the package a couple years ago.

Later, when my first son was about 4 or 5, he was petrified of the mat.  He would leap in or out of our door to avoid stepping on the mat.  He's 27 now. I think he's probably still a little leery of it. I imagine there are a lot of kids of the '90's that are traumatized by this scream.

Come to the Party

I apologize for the lapse yesterday. It's been a busy week at work.

This poor little invite never got a chance to invite someone to a Halloween party.  He looks out the window waiting for guests to arrive that never will.

It was made by Hallmark and looks to date from the 1950's to '60's.

Won't you come to his party?

Spearhead Industries Mummy Make-Up Disguise Kit

My first Halloween was the only year I got a store-bought costume. It was a Ben Cooper Spider-man in all its red, blue and yellow shame (I won't go into how disappointed I was with the off-model coloring).  Every year after that, I was on my own to make myself up with whatever resources I had. I've written previously how I used my mom's makeup and Imagineering vampire blood and teeth to transform myself into a wannabe Wolfman (everyone thought I was a tramp).  I never had any actual Halloween makeup like this.

This Mummy Make-Up Disguise Kit comes from a little-known company called Spearhead Industries.  It dates from 1981.  While it's hard to see, it comes with a "mirror" on the front of the packaging so you can check yourself out.  It's actually just a thin strip of reflective foil.

Monster Hot Rod Plaque

While out garage saling last weekend, I stumbled onto an unadvertised estate sale in my childhood hometown (which isn't saying I took some long drive. I only live about 5 minutes away from where I grew up).  The sale was at the home of a family my family knew and in fact only lived about 1/4 of a mile from our home.

The last person to live in the house was one of the sons of the family.  He had been into hot rodding cars since the 1960's and a lot of items were hot rod related.

While looking through a box of cast metal plaques, I came across this one (actually, I found two of them).

Halloween Revisited -- Brew Print

Some of the things I find that I love the most have no monetary value, not that that should be a shock or unusual. This blueprint of a witch stands out. Why was it made? We'll never know.  But I'm glad it was.

I found this smashed in the bottom of a box in the basement at the same estate sale where I found "Tom's Book".

Halloween Revisited -- Halloween Monster Fun Find

It's the weekend which it's time for reruns Halloween Revisited where we revisit past years' posts while I take a break.  Today's comes from 2013.

It's always fun to find something extra in the items I buy at garage and estate sales.  Usually, I find them in in books, entrapped for years in the dark of the pages.  It might be a pressed flower, a four-leaf clover, lost love notes or even hidden tardy slips.  Over the summer I even found two $2 bills tucked inside a CB jargon book.

I was at an estate sale a couple of weeks back and found a few Halloween records.  One was "Sounds to Make You Shiver" by Pickwick Records published in 1974.

Imagineering Sparkling Faces

I've written about my love of the Imagineering company numerous times on this blog.

This Imagineering Party Makeup dates from 1987, so it's a little after my time and appears to be aimed at the Glitter Rock crowd, also not my crowd.  You can also see it was purchased from Venture (a local midwest department store similar to K-Mart) for $6.39. Quite pricey for 1987.

Beistle Skull and Cross Bones Die Cut

This is another damaged die cut I found at the same sale as this witch.  Again, damage doesn't bother me.  These were meant to be hung in classrooms and homes year after year.  Damage is going to occur.

 This Skull and Cross Bones was made by Beistle in the 1960's.

Pez One-Eyed Monster

When I found this footless Pez this past year, I thought maybe he was a gorilla and was missing an eye.  As it turns out, he's actually known as "The One-Eyed Monster".

Melted Plastic Popcorn Witches

 I picked up these melted plastic popcorn witches together at a sale a couple years ago.  Apparently, I never posted them.

Atari Haunted House

I was late to the Atari craze.  Its popularity was already declining when my parents broke down and bought me one, likely because it was finally affordable.

I didn't have a whole lot of cartridges; again, that affordability thing.  After all, if memory serves, cartridges still cost about $30 in 1983.  So, often, I would borrow cartridges from friends.

I distinctly remember borrowing this Atari cartridge from a friend in high school in the Fall of that year.  I thought a cartridge called "Haunted House" would certainly augment and enhance my Halloween experience.  It did to varying degrees of success.  I wandered around the blocky maze that stood in for a house, usually in the dark, encountering digitized creatures that required some suspension of belief to see them for what they were supposed to be and never did win.  I think I only had it for a week or two and the day soon came when I had to return it.  I recently rediscovered it at an estate sale.  

Halloween Revisited -- Strangely Enough

I'm reaching back into the past once more today, this time to 2013.  Again, I didn't participate in the Countdown to Halloween until 2014, so hopefully this is something new for you.  And let me apologize for the numerous changes in font and text size.  Blogger doesn't have an easy way to repost past posts without copying and pasting which doesn't work well.

There's no shortage of television programs profiling weird happenings and ghostly occurrences these days, particularly this time of year.  Shows like Travel Channel's Mysteries at the Museum,  Syfy's Destination Truth, Biography's My Ghost Story, History Channel's Monster Quest  and countless others satisfy even the most rabid paranormal fan's appetite.  I have to admit I'm a sucker for those kind of shows.  I've been drawn to them since I was a child watching Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of "and Jack Palance's "Believe it...OR NOT!"  Prior to those shows, similar tales were often compiled in books such as  the one I found at an estate sale some time ago.

Halloween Revisited -- The Devil, You Say?

I dropped the ball today, so I'm introducing a new feature for this year called "Halloween Revisited".  This isn't a "best of", it's more of a "hey, what have I already posted in past years that people may not have seen or remember?"

This one dates back to 2011 prior to my participating in the Countdown to Halloween.

It's rare to find cherubic devils, but here we are.  I found this guy at a garage sale way back when (when you could still find decent vintage items at garage sales at affordable prices)

Beistle Wiggling Witch

I hit a pretty good sale with some nice vintage Halloween diecuts this past Spring.  Oddly enough, there was only one other person looking through them. Unfortunately, that person got there just before me and grabbed some of the best pieces.  They left behind any that were damaged, so I was glad to save those.  The damage doesn't bother me.  This one has some tape tears, but I think it still looks great.

While the piece isn't marked, I can see by the art that it's a Beistle and various auctions for this piece corroborate that, at least for what that's worth.  It was also suggested she dates from the 1940's which I would agree with. I couldn't find her in either of my reference books.  

The witch stands 14" tall and is jointed at the neck and waist, allowing her to perform a nice little jig when wiggled.

Monster Maker Game

Today we look at "Monster Maker" by Whitman (Western Publishing) from 1977.  While this game isn't as cool as the Mighty Men & Monster Maker I found back in 2019, I can see how this could be fun for the pre-school to about 6 years old set; the game recommends ages 4 to 8, but I can see a 7 or 8 year old getting bored with it.

I found this particular game out of the box with just the lid cut out.  I'm not quite sure why that would have been done unless the box was damaged severely.

Halloween -- It's My Bag, But It's Lookin' Mighty Empty

Greetings, greetings fellow Halloweeners!

How can it be that time of year has rolled around once again?

This is my 13th (*gasp*) year with The Countdown.  Will it be unlucky? Well...

If this past year's finds were Halloween treats, I got a rock.

I'm not saying I didn't find some gems among the rocks, not a to mention a grail I've been on the hunt for for years, but they were few and far between.

As lamented in the past, it's getting harder and harder to find vintage Halloween at garage and estate sales. Most people are privy to the collector's market now and for those that aren't, Google reverse imaging has made it a no-brainer when identifying collectability and value.

But let's not let that spoil our bag of joy this year.

As is tradition, my first post will be some Trick or Treat bags I've found over the past year, starting with this 1970's bag by Austin Art, a subsidiary of Hazelle, Inc Kansas City, Missouri.

Victorian Pizza Party?

 I picked up this photo in a box of postcards at a sale recently.  I would date the photo to around the turn of the 20th century.  Frankly, the image baffled me.  This jovial group appears to be dining on pizza.  

This Mystery's For You

For those of you that have followed me lo these many years, you know of my love of vintage advertising.  It's been a while, but in those early years, I would even scan all the ads from vintage magazines and post here.

I was at an estate sale a few weekends ago and came across this original painting: