Hudson Valley Halloween Magazine Your #1 Hudson Valley Halloween Resource for all things grim and ghoulish!
There was a time when Halloween was not about gruesome monsters, zombies, and serial killers. Halloween was a night for “merry-making” as they called it. Halloween was about tricks, treats, and new love. Well, let’s not get too carried away with new love. You can see romance reflected in much of the art and design of Halloween products of the early 20th century. Vintage Halloween is making a strong comeback. You can see the influence in today’s Halloween art, collectibles, party goods and even our happy home mavens like Martha Stewart and Matthew Mead have adopted the style. Vintage Halloween is highly collectible today from advertising art to party good and it’s quickly disappearing. Let’s take a look at Halloween from years past and enjoy a little holiday merry-making.
Dennison Paper Products
Dennison of Framingham, MA made Halloween the joyous and colorful celebration that it is by creating a brilliantly compiled party guide that focused on using their crepe paper products. Each year they published what is called a Bogie Book for about ten cents. Today an original Bogie Book can sell for hundreds of dollars. You can buy replicas on Amazon.com for about $13.00. Anyone who has an original is a fortunate collector. 
The Bogie Book is filled with vintage Halloween ideas for decorations, party games, costumes, food and more. Picture yourself walking into a room that scream’s Halloween. It’s a celebration of black and orange. Crepe paper curtains are strategically patterned across the windows. A witchy table cloth covers the table and serves as a highlight to the black cat paper centerpiece. Costumes are made from muslin with crepe paper Halloween patterns sewn or glued to the light material. Very striking!
Bogie Books are s a great resource to weave a little vintage Halloween into your celebrations for a trendy twist that will delight your guests. Use your creative talents to create your own style.You can find many original Dennison Halloween products on EBAY and Etsy. Dennison Crepe paper sheets created a base for many costume and decoration designs and is much strong than today’s version.
Vintage Halloween Advertising
Vintage Halloween advertising makes for great home and party decor. I generally look for bright and colorful adds that usually have sentimental value. I was fortunate and find this great
Halloween Woolworth’s ad that proudly hangs on my wall to remind me of the happy Halloween’s of long ago. Vintage Halloween advertising is seen as works of art. from candy to decor, and even beer has their share of the retail sales market, you will be amazed at the selection of ads your can find.
Candy ads are easy to come by. Brach’s is a another favorite of mine. Being a candy corn connoisseur, I just had to have a vintage Brach’s candy ad. Generally, when I visit an estate sale or antique shop I scour the magazine to try to find October issues. Since I started collecting ads, I found myself looking into the history of the companies whose Halloween products started us on our journey into the dark and spooky holiday that we adore. It’s quite interesting. I had no idea Brach’s candy is the lead retailer of our beloved orange, yellow, and white sugary treat. Ad prices generally run from a few dollars to $20 or $30. The value really depends on how much these little treasures are worth to you or someone else.
Good luck collecting the art of vintage halloween. May you find the treasures you seek.
