A Halloween collectibles library:THR’s Bookstore on Etsy THR’s library includes two art-book surveys Halloween Artifacts, V!: Lighting and Halloween Artifacts, V2 Festoons with four research digests The Halloween Retrospect V1, V2, V3, V4. Well, here we are in midst of winter overtaking autumn for holiday season 2025…!!! And seems an appropriate time to say thank-you […]
Toy Tales Halloween 2025 Archivist – The Halloween Retrospect by Joanna Hauser – Oct 31, 2025 The Friday Five. What a most wonderful surprise! This Halloween 2025 is a special treat for The Halloween Retrospect! The archive has once again been interviewed by the fun-loving folks at Toy Tales (independent toy journalism website with a […]
NEW Sixth reference for Halloween! Announcing Halloween Artifacts, Volume 2: Festoons which is book six (!!!) in a two-year+ publication venture from the archive library of The Halloween Retrospect! This will continue the Halloween Artifacts series with large-scale full-color photographs spanning 114 pages. This bigger 8-1/2 x 11 format offers multiple views of familiar and […]
Non-Invasive Restoration of Existing Honeycomb The above image shows the before and after of af Beistle novelty dancing figure Lasansky dates 1930-1937. Note the facial features will change across the decades in latter versions. Over a decade earlier in days of initial blog The Sane Halloween Observer a musing is penned as author wonders if […]
Digests & Art Surveys: 2 Years of THR Guidebooks The above image reviews some of the various vintage Halloween collectible guidebooks and art surveys published by The Halloween Retrospect since July 2023. Not to toot one’s own holiday noisemaker, but The Halloween Retrospect wishes to take a moment to review it’s own recent past. The […]
Miniature Standees Seeking new discoveries and/or ways of looking at old data are standard methodologies here at the Halloween Retrospect archive which began studies (for THR, V1 released July 2023) with no more than 480 primary source catalogs which have since increased (as of June 2025) to about 635 . So, as one might imagine, […]
School Holidaze From THR’s archive library, the recent digest The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4 features a two-part article recalling certain individuals working toward educational improvements in the United States. Some may surprise. For example, while audiences today associate Milton Bradley with games, there is more to the founder (see also Milton Bradly and the Kindergarten […]
Above image is a repeat of this blog entry’s banner with Halloween collectibles research tools used by THR, V4 including: copyright, patent, & archive library materials. A World of Halloween Sources One reason THR guides published here since 2023 as The Halloween Retrospect differ, than many past guidebooks on the subject of vintage Halloween collectibles, […]
Volume 4 Vintage collectibles Guide The archive librarian returns in a big way to its digest series of vintage Halloween collectible guides with The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4. This new release book not only continues solving mysteries of old holiday products (via research of 625+ catalogs 1900 to 1979) but this time includes a one-of-a-kind […]
Other Holidays Unlocking Halloween Product data As collector these past twenty-something years, it becomes apparent very early that numerous holidays (Christmas, Easter, et. al.) provide data relative to vintage Halloween collectibles, (and this writer thinks of their own multi-seasonal forays for Bindlegrim as creative maker). Thus, even though The Halloween Retrospect publication list (see Books) […]
Great Tastes in Books With recent inclusion of Halloween Artifacts, Volume 1: Lighting among books about vintage Halloween in the Practical Peculiarities household library (and see Nikk’s latest cookbook Peculiar Baking), it seems a perfect time to review some of the items shown in Nikk’s 2023 AND 2024 specials… and offer a few links to […]
Art books & Research Digests (THR) Image Updated March 2025 to include The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4: A selection of book publications from The Halloween Retrospect archive library – featuring vintage Halloween collectibles guides in small digest volumes and the newest art-book survey Halloween Artifacts. Since the first THR archive library publication of September 2023, […]
NEW! Full-Color Halloween Guide Halloween Artifacts, Volume 1: Lighting is the newest guide for vintage Halloween collectibles. The book is expected to have a sales release date of September 21, 2024 from the THR bookstore on Etsy. And while the new survey book series will shift into picture-book style with big photographs (on 8-1/2 x […]
Primary sources & The Halloween Retrospect V3 Do you know where your guidebook gets its data, and will future research be able to use it as a citable source? This question is a continuing concern at THR’s archive library, and it is a distinguishing direction with its own series of vintage collectibles publications – that […]
Reference Book Guides for Vintage Halloween collectors Updated December 2, 2025 Welcome to THR’s quick review of its new best-selling book series published about vintage Halloween collectibles! As of this update, the research archive now offers a six-book library which includes two art-book style surveys (Halloween Artifacts, V!: Lighting) and (Halloween Artifacts, V2 Festoons)and four […]
Volume 3 Vintage collectibles Guide The next reference for vintage Halloween collectibles is expected for sale in early summer 2024 with The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 3. As with earlier volumes, the newest book in the series will continue to delve more deeply into certain subjects of the vintage Halloween market, offering illustrated data as a […]
Hallmark Vintage Packaging Part 3: 1970-1979 This entry is Part 3 in a short blog series examining Hallmark (1950-1980) ephemera – mainly assembly, honeycomb, and pop-ups. As stated in Hallmark Halloween: 1950’s and Halloween Hallmark: 1960’s, THR is writing these entries to develop data for vintage Hallmark Halloween centerpieces to assist an article (on a […]
Hallmark Vintage Packaging Part 2: 1960-1969 As mentioned in previous entry Hallmark Halloween: 1950’s, THR is developing data for vintage Hallmark Halloween centerpieces (those near and bit later than mid-century) to assist an article (on a different yet related topic) in works for collectors’ guide Volume 3 of The Halloween Retrospect. And rather than play […]
Hallmark Vintage Packaging Part 1: 1950-1959 The archivist-librarian has been seeking data on vintage Hallmark Halloween collectibles now that articles are underway for Volume 3 of The Halloween Retrospect (a research series from THR’s bookstore). And so, as a sneak-peek to future content for faithful readers (noting importantly that this blog is supportive rather than […]
Vintage Inspirations Developing cover art for The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 2, I remember much of the inspiration came by way of vintage textures, colors, and sales copy found in vendor catalogs – with the cheeky idea that one would view the front or back sides of a vintage collectible dependent on the book’s front or […]
Toy Tales Collector Interview The Halloween Retrospect’s catalog collection is a market history seen through vintage pages filled of gewgaws, thingamabobs, whatchamacallits, doohickeys, and holiday curios (including my personal favorite Halloween) dating 1900 to 1979. Since the library began as a bit of a side-project as a relatively new venture built on past interests, it […]
Midcentury Halloween Candies E. Rosen Company’s Moon Pop, boxed with a set of 5-card Trix or Treats sucker holders from the pages of Sears 1950 Fall and Winter Catalog for the Chicago market. One of the shorter pieces in The Halloween Retrospect, Vol 2, (second book in a research series for vintage Halloween collectors) is […]
Mysteries of Source & Credit This entry was bound for a fitful start of overthink, yet the contents are completely topical to the edition of The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 2 and to my own experience as collector, archivist, librarian, and researcher. I believe these are important notes regarding vintage data, source, and credit, as these […]
Early Century Dennison Following is a quick glance at some vintage items as companions to the article (and poster shown below) discussing Dennison’s vintage Halloween catalogs (and/or various promotional publications). In “Decrypting Dennison: Serial Number Guide Featuring Autumn Publications” of The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 2 numerous Halloween titles are referenced (starting 1909 to 1910’s and 1920’s […]
A History in Numbers Have you ever noticed a rather implausible code number stashed in the nooks and crannies of authentic vintage Dennison publications (such as Bogie Book, etc.)? Ever wonder if it holds any significance in terms of book collectibles? Now, in a feature article of The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 2, there is a […]
Volume 2 Vintage collectibles Guide Guidebook announcement here for The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 2 – the continuation of a new series of reference booklets about vintage Halloween collectibles. This newest edition is set to arrive mid to late December 2023, to offer more unearthed treasures found while the archivist librarian digs through period catalogs: about […]
Beistle’S Vintage Halloween It is the way of the world – some things just get more volume while others exist far from the maddening roar. Yet, speaking personally, it is often those quieter places where one finds the most amazing treasure, and this seems to hold true for contemporary survey books on the topic of […]
Vintage Halloween Catalogs Looking more deeply within publications concurrent to the vintage Halloween market of the past (circa 1900-1980), it became evident, as an archivist and librarian for The Halloween Retrospect, that popular surveys created in modern times (while visually rich) appear to stray from the historic record. Given that citations in these newer books […]
Archives across the U.S. While working toward a Library and Information Science degree (scant time before publishing The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 1) opportunities arose to visit with some of the professional archives, libraries, and museums of the United States from coast to coast. One highlight was being first from the public to return (in May […]
March’s Halloween poster The addition of an 11×17 fold-out poster insert for The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 1 wasn’t going to happen unless its quality could be near (or better than) source material, so that those oh-so-tiny fonts and detailed illustrations of vintage Halloween collectibles would appear crisp and clear. Fortunately, some current archive and library […]
Dennison’s Bogie Book Since it is difficult to squeeze everything found in the THR archive’s library into the final version of a small softcover digest, it is advantageous having this additional blog space to reveal items considered and/or discussed in the pages of The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 1 (now available btw from the Publications portion […]
New Vintage collectibles series The Halloween Retrospect announces the new series of self-titled research digests (magazines) arrive July 2023 to gaze into the world of vintage Halloween markets as seen through hundreds of information objects (mainly ~500 vintage catalogs 1900-1979) housed in The Halloween Retrospect archive library. The content for the first volume has been […]
From Blog to Book Began as long ago as late 2014, The Sane Halloween Observer gave an unofficial farewell (January 14, 2023) in a recent blog entry What Next? announcing a newer print venture with The Halloween Retrospect archive library. This was a move on the author’s part to be more involved with developing a […]
