Another piece of ephemera today is this Halloween paper plate featuring another witch and her familiar along with bats for good measure. It probably dates from the 1970's when Halloween was softening from the prior scarier images. I do like the bright neon orange colors which don't show up as well in this photo as in person. I bought this in a stack of 6 identical plates from the same estate sale as yesterday's nut cup.
I found this Halloween nut cup at an estate sale for $4 which might sound like a lot for such a small piece, but you have to remember how ephemeral something like this is.
I never read Child Life magazine as a kid. In fact, I never even saw it until I began finding them at estate sales. But anytime I find an October issue of anything, I'll pick it up. For your perusal, here are the better parts of the October 1978 issue of Child Life. The cover features a witch and her familiar being terrorized by jet-pack wielding Elves. Kind of a metaphor for how stores push Christmas during Halloween these days.
I came upon this framed print of Ichabod Crane at an estate sale this past summer. The person whose estate sale it was had a house filled throughout with shelves of books.
"First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys."-- Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
For years I joked about finding a box of Golden Age comics at a garage or estate sale; like those people that find the first Superman or Batman comic inside the wall or mixed among a bunch of papers in Grandma's attic.
The "Golden Age" of comics, for those unfamiliar with comic books, dates from essentially 1938 with the appearance of Superman in "Action Comics" #1 to 1956 with the appearance of the "Silver Age" Flash in Showcase #4 which heralded, of course, the "Silver Age" of comics. When the terms were coined, they were basically 50 year-old and 25 year-old comics (hence Gold and Silver). It was my fantasy that I'd come upon a box of superhero comic books dating from the 1940's some day.
Last weekend, my fantasy became reality, although not with superheroes.
I was at an estate sale for a 95-year-old woman who'd recently passed away. She was an Italian war bride whom neighbors described as sweet, but stern. From the pictures of the estate sale, the house was packed with vintage items.
I had gone to this sale in the hopes of snagging a vintage Frankenstein character glass I'd see in a box on the estate sale's website. When I got there, I was 40th in line and they were letting people in 10 at a time. By the time I got inside, the character glasses were picked over and the Frankenstein glass was gone. Oh well. I looked around the rest of the house, focusing on the basement as I typically do before moving on to the kitchen and then the bedrooms, which are typically my last stop. We were an easy 45 minutes into the sale at this point.
In one bedroom, my wife pointed to a box and said, "Did you see the comics?" I hadn't. I pulled the box out and my eyes bugged when I saw 10 cent cover price issues. The box was marked $1 each.
"Sherry the Showgirl #3" Dec. 1956
I thought I'd make an appearance before the upcoming "Countdown to Halloween" begins (if it still begins this year). I assure you, despite my absence, the garage saling force is still strong in this one. I'm still out there every weekend, rain, shine or snow, attending garage and estate sales, though the volume of product I'm buying has decreased significantly. I quit selling on eBay over a year ago, so I don't have a good outlet to offload excess product or a reason to buy something simply to flip it. But I still pick up things that interest me, including this Scholastic Magazine from September of 1977, Sprint. I found it among the rubble of a basement at an estate sale home which I can only describe as an explosion of the 1970's.
Well, once again the day is here. It seems to go faster and faster every year. I can't believe October is over.
The last few years, I've started taking photos of decorated homes I see while out garage and estate saling Here is this year's offering. I actually went back to a few after dark to get the full effect. The great thing is, in my experience, people are always welcoming of you to walk on their property and taking photos of their decorations. Enjoy!
Well, once again we find ourselves at the day before THE day. Traditionally on this blog, today is the end of garage sale content with tomorrow reserved for photos of my home haunt. Believe it or not, our outside still isn't decorated (as of writing this). We had a new roof put on a little over a week ago (tornado damage last March) and I didn't want the decorations damaged by flying shingles. Then it began raining (after a 3 month drought). And raining. And raining. Today (10/30) is supposed to be cloudy but dry, so I'm going to go into overdrive and get the outside decorated. Hopefully photos tomorrow will prove I was successful.
But for today, I thought I'd do a photo dump of all the diecuts I have heretofore not shown on this blog. Some of these are from this past season, others I've found in prior years, but never posted (to my knowledge. Honestly, I didn't go through the blog and look).
Up first is a find from this year. It's a giant version of the classic Beistle skeleton, measuring in at 54" tall. I picked him up for $10 which I thought was a good deal.
At the sale where I found one of my grails (heretofore known as the "grail sale"), I also picked up these 2 fellows.
First up is a classic Gurley candle dating from the 1970's. Technically, it's a Suni candle, but W&F Mfg. owned both companies and used the same forms.
What's Halloween without some rubber bats and spiders? Boring, that's what! These jigglers (technically, the bat doesn't jiggle, but he falls in the same class) were made in Hong Kong and date to the 1970's. First up is this green bat which is one I hadn't seen before finding this one. Image Googling him didn't provide any matches.
Today's post, like yesterday's, dates back to 2015. When I repost these, I can't believe how long it's been. It seems like I just wrote them. Enjoy one of my favorite posts.
Today's post comes from 2015 as we revisit the Wyandotte legend of the Hoo' Stra Doo'.
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.
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!
