Antiques & Collecting: Collecting Halloween decorations

Halloween is becoming one of the most popular holidays for collectors. Of course, children still dress in costumes and go door to door for treats, but the holiday items collectors are more interested in are the decorations that are created each year.

Carved pumpkin jack-o’-lanterns are being replaced by plastic, foam or cardboard. They can be saved and used for many years. Hundreds of witches, ghosts, black cats and skeletons are manufactured and sold to decorate a house inside and out, but it is the vintage toys, candy containers, postcards, costumes, noisemakers and sparklers made since the early 1900s that attracted the collectors in the late 1970s.

Today there are important auctions featuring Halloween, including modern dolls and figures, full-size ghosts that guard the front door and even a pair of legs in striped stockings and pointy shoes that is all that is left of the witch who landed in the planter headfirst.

Display the collection in a cool room without bright lights or sunlight and handle with care the papier-mâché candy containers made in Germany in the 1930s.

They are expensive today, $50 to $150, and an adult-size skeleton costume in good shape with a papier-mâché skull mask sells for hundreds of dollars.

This toy, a dancing couple with pumpkin heads, is on a wheeled platform, and they dance in circles when wound up. It was probably made in the early 1900s. Bertoia Auctions sold the toy for $1,920.

What is a fore-edge book?

The fore edge of a book is the edge opposite the spine. In a fore-edge book, the edges of the pages are painted or gilded to make a picture when the book is closed.

Fore-edge paintings may have been done as early as the 10th century. In the 17th century, artists began painting slightly inside the outside edge of the page so the picture was only visible when the pages were fanned out.

Double fore-edge paintings also were done so two different pictures were visible depending on which way the pages were fanned. A lot of fore-edge paintings found today are later additions to old books. Fore-edge books sell for a few hundred dollars or more.

Current Prices

Halloween Jack-O’-Lantern, papier-mâché, orange, melon ribs, scary face, paper insert eyes & teeth, wire handle, 9 inches, $190.

Stand, casket, Victorian, wood, folding, slip joint hinge, turned legs, spindle stretchers, brass hardware, 1800s, 23 x 19 inches, pair, $400.

Bookend, skeleton, seated on bench, rests chin on knuckles, signed Milo, 10 x 6 inches, $1,160.

Tip: Old papier-mâché jack-o’-lanterns originally had a thin painted piece of paper for eyes. The light from the candle showed through the paper. You can make a replacement with tracing paper and watercolor paint.