1920s Halloween Nut Cup

This delicate paper nut cup was made in the 1920s.

About 3 inches tall, it features beautiful lithography,

and was one item in a set of party supplies featuring this fairy design.

Halloween Spooks Postcard, 1910

"I'm not afraid of Spooks, are you?

I'm just pretending they are true."

"Can you pretend?"

1920s Halloween Silhouette Lantern

Here's another amazing survivor of Halloweens past: this cardboard and tissue paper lantern. Made in the 1920s, it was intended to hold a real candle inside, just like the papier mache and pulp jack o' lanterns posted earlier. This one was used, but somehow managed to not burst into flames.

 

 

These lanterns have recently been reproduced, like so much other antique Halloween, so collect carefully.

Antique Halloween Ghost Postcard

Although ghosts have long been a staple feature of stories traditionally told at Halloween time, for some reason they do not appear often in old decorations, novelties, or postcards associated with the holiday. This one is a rare example, dating from around 1910.

There are a lot of details in this card: note the barely-there face of the ghost,

and the tiny witch flying past the moon.

Gourd Guys Halloween Postcards, 1908

My very favorite antique Halloween postcards feature these little gourd guys, printed by Raphael Tuck and mailed between 1908 and 1909.


 

First, the gourd guys run from a witch and her cat. 

Look at all the detail in the tiny image

of the moon & witch!



 

Here, the gourd guys have reached relative safety atop a large squash.

 

 

Finally, they make it home where a Halloween party cake awaits.

 

 

Pumpkin Candy Container

Here's a jolly looking jack o' lantern, a candy container made in West Germany around the late 1950s. Just 4 1/2 inches tall, he's made of molded cardboard and opens at the center, providing a space for small candies.



The candies are long gone, but here's where they were.

Candy containers of this type were exported from Germany for over 100 years, and they were made for many holidays, including Christmas and Easter. There are collectors who specialize in candy containers, and entire guidebooks are devoted to them. They're a fun collectible, although their fragile and disposable nature makes them a challenge to find today.



Antique Halloween Postcard: Pumpkin Boat

Something about the style of illustration in this Halloween postcard, circa 1910, makes me think of  children's picture books. I just see a story here, maybe something like "The Witch Who Came to Visit."

 

Where has she come from, and why didn't she just fly, as would have been traditional? Where is she going, in her broom masted pumpkin boat? Is she a good witch or a bad witch? She's smiling, but I suppose that's not a sure thing: the witch in Hansel and Gretel was probably smiling warmly right up to the time she tried to cook and eat her little visitors. Is that cat safe? Why isn't he in the boat too? I'm worried he's going to fall off. And just how seaworthy is that pumpkin boat? Is there any danger of fish nibbling away the bottom? Won't water come through the face holes? Seems like a major design flaw there. This is definitely a postcard that raises lots of questions.

Pumpkin Head Postcard

This antique Halloween postcard is one of my all time favorites. The pumpkin head girl is so detailed: note her teeny tiny gold teeth, and the black cats on her dress. This fabulous character was mailed in October 1912 from Wahoo, Nebraska.

Happy October!

October is my favorite month of the year, and the perfect time to showcase some of the Other Stuff I collect: old Halloween decorations, postcards, lanterns, games, and assorted ephemera.

Over the next few weeks I'll highlight some of the favorites from my collection, starting with this fabulous postcard from 1908, featuring a romantic pumpkin-headed couple.

Pumpkin love.

 

Antique Bear & Badges: Mr. Oddfellow

I've posted once before about this bear, shortly after I found him, but he's had a lot of work done since then and I thought he was worth another look. One of the favorites from my collection, this large, 20 inch British bear dates from around 1915, and came wearing an antique child's coat of cranberry colored wool. His original owner had added a few school pins to the coat, including a prefect's badge and what might have been a track and field medal.

I added an old Oddfellows pin, given that the bear has a rather odd, yet endearing, appearance. At some point in his long life, he experienced eye replacement surgery, and apparently his doctor was all out of matching shoe buttons. I wouldn't change it though: the mismatched eyes give him great character.

Anyway, every time I'm antiquing I keep an eye out for more badges for Oddfellow's coat. Here's what he has so far:

Some of my favorites are in this closeup: another Oddfellows badge, a "23 Skidoo!" pinback from the 1920s, and a teeny tiny Charlie McCarthy.

The large Oddfellows badge below dates to the early 1900s.

Vintage pins, including a University of Michigan football badge, an old State Fair souvenir, and a Heinz Pickles advertising pin adorn the left side of the coat.

Another favorite, these flight wings were a premium from the Captain Midnight radio show:

R and L Camel Train Cereal Premiums

I've posted before about a big pile of R &L Company cereal premiums I found at a toy show a couple of years ago. Since then, I've added quite a few more R & L pieces to my collection. Here's one of my favorite sets.

In the late 1960s, an artist named Harry Hargreaves was asked to come up with an idea for a cereal premium set to be distributed through Kellogg's and manufactured by the R & L plastics company in Australia.  Hargreaves recalled the camel caravans he had seen while stationed in Egypt during WWII, long lines of laden camels walking in single file, commonly called "camel trains." Taking the phrase literally, Hargreaves crafted a beautifully designed set of tiny toys comprised of camel train cars with monkey passengers.

Made of a brittle plastic with delicate connector hooks, the toys are very fragile, and this fact, coupled with their very small size (the seated monkeys are a wee .5 inches tall, and the cars average 1.5 inches long) meant many were broken and lost over the past 40 years. The R &L Camel Trains are now some of the company's most sought premiums.



Each camel came separately in a box of cereal, and so did two accessory sets of the bed, canopy and some of the monkeys, which made collecting the whole series even more challenging. I can just imagine the frustration of children who got the sleeping car camel or first class camel, but never managed to find the bed or canopy to complete those cars. What a dastardly yet brilliant marketing campaign!

The engine is one of the most fanciful of the car designs:

Next is the guard van, atop which a monkey holding a blunderbuss watches over a treasure chest:

Behind this car comes the economy class camel, carrying a couple of monkey passengers seated in the open air:

It's no-frills service on the economy camel, but things are very different on the next car, the first class camel, complete with its canopy and top-hatted monkey rider:

And last but not least is the sleeper car camel, in which a tiny monkey rests in a bed borne on the back of a kneeling camel. A tiny bed pan (usually missing) hangs from the end of the bed.

Another camel was necessary to complete this set: the signal camel, along with a couple of flag waving monkeys. Without this set, your camel train would be sure to run into difficulties along its route. The ladder is detachable, making this another difficult set to find complete.

The tiny monkeys are worth a close-up of their own. The detail on such small toys, meant as mere cereal box giveaways, is quite remarkable. The flag monkey even has the stub of a cigar clenched in his teeth: 

Stay tooned: lots more R & L to come!

Vintage Valentine: Shouting Girl

Here's another odd valentine from my collection. Made in Germany in the 1920s-30s, this mechanical valentine features a girl with a die-cut open mouth. As the wheel hidden in her bow is turned, words pass through her mouth, making it appear she is shouting them out. They read: "It's your turn to love me, valentine!"

Vintage Valentines: Vegetable People

One of my favorite vintage toy lines is Mr. Potato Head, so it's probably not surprising that some of my favorite vintage valentines are those with similarly anthropomorphic characters. Here are my two most recent such finds, featuring friendly pea pod, lettuce, and carrot people.

Vintage Valentine: the Bubble Blower

One of the loveliest valentine postcards in my collection is this one, mailed from Chicago in 1911. The richly illustrated card features a beautiful woman blowing heart-shaped bubbles for a group of chubby cherubs. The woman's dress and one of the cherub's wraps are actually made of fabric, affixed to the card.

Vintage Valentine: Flowermobile

One of the most unusual valentine postcards I've found is this one, circa 1911. It features an antique automobile festooned with flowers done in raised relief and liberally sprinkled with mica glitter. A cute little sailor drives the flowermobile to its romantic destination.

Vintage Valentine: Difficult to Describe...

This antique valentine dates from 1903 and retains its original cord, which made it possible to hang it up as a decoration. It was illustrated by R. F. Outcault, the creator of The Yellow Kid comic strip and the Buster Brown advertising character. It's from a series Outcault did featuring these recurring characters of a rather scary bear and a scruffy little dog. Doesn't the bear look rather lascivious? Or hungry? Or both? And what the hell is the dog talking about?! Baffling, weird and kind of creepy!

Vintage Valentine: A Very Odd Gentleman

This is one of the oddest valentines I've ever found. If it wasn't for the caption printed on his shirt front, would you ever have guessed this was a valentine? Made in Germany in 1903, the monocled man's head can be spun upside down, changing his tufts of hair to whiskers. Either way, he's pretty creepy.

Vintage Valentine: Chalkboard Boy

Some of the "Other Stuff" I collect, besides toys, is vintage valentines. The variety of valentines produced over the past 200 years is incredible; I'm always surprised at what I find. For the next seven days, I'll share some of my latest discoveries.

First up: this mechanical card, circa the 1940s, which features a die cut "chalk board" window. As the wheel on the right is turned, the boy's arm moves across the window, appearing to write the words "I love you" on the board. Cleverly constructed, it's an ingenious little card.

Antique Paper Dolls

I see old, tatty stationery boxes all the time while antiquing, and I've discovered they're always worth opening, as sometimes there is something fabulous stored inside them. They were just natural places for children to stash their treasured possessions. Once, I found such a box contained a vintage 1960s troll and her extensive wardrobe. This time, the stationery box was even older (1920s) and quite dirty. Really, it was just filthy, and almost too much for even me to touch...

...but I did, and was I ever glad! Inside...treasures! Three antique paper dolls, complete with outfits, hats, accessories, and even some original pattern pieces.

Wheeeee!!!!

The dolls were made by Dennison, a manufacturer primarily of paper party goods, decorations, and supplies. The jointed dolls are made from heavy card stock, and most of the clothes are of crepe paper, which Dennison used for many of its holiday decorations.
Some of the crepe paper clothes came printed with clothing designs, but other items looked as if they were cut and assembled by the child owner. The discovery of some hat pattern pieces in the bottom of the box confirmed this suspicion, and the patterns also gave the names of the dolls: Eleanor (the big sister), Betty, and Bobbie, the little brother.

From left to right: Eleanor, 10 inches; Betty, 8; and Bobbie, 7.

The dolls are marked "Dennison U.S.A." on the back.

 The hat patterns.

The hat patterns unfolded.

Here's Eleanor's wardrobe:

Eleanor in a pre-printed hat and coat.

 I love this flapper headdress!

 Eleanor in a child-made dress and hat.


Here's Betty's wardrobe:

Betty in a pink dress like her big sister's.

 My favorite outfit, made of fragile crepe.

Bobbie's wardrobe was not as extensive as those of his sisters, but he had a few interesting pieces, including a pirate costume and a bathing suit. 

Bobbie in his ruffly green suit.

Bobbie in his Halloween pirate costume. Arrgh!

When I packed the dollies back into their box, I noticed some writing on the cover. After some gentle brushing away of dust, the words became clearer:

"Margaret Johnston   

321 E. Liberty St."

It was very moving to consider these words, and try to picture the little girl who wrote them, and who loved these paper dolls so much, she saved them for almost 90 years...thank you Margaret Johnston!