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Mark B. Ledenbach's vintage Halloween collectibles blog.

Vintage Paper Halloween Hat by Beistle's. A black cat on one side, a witch on

This early variant of a thin-tissue coned hat produced by Beistle sold for $45, a solid price considering its wrinkled and bedraggled appearance. I would have taken even more dollars off given that the seller included a photo showing it being worn and another showing enough dirt under the fingernails suggesting that the seller, drac, clawed his way out of an earthen resting place after daylight hours ended. 

Wonderful Vintage Jointed Halloween Skeleton-Embossed-Heavy Cardboard-38in-EXCLT

The Germans issued three sizes of this deeply embossed articulated skeleton design during the 1920s. The size you will see most commonly is 27" high. This intermediate size is rarely seen, while the largest, at ~50" high, is exceedingly rare. Prices for the German diecut skeletons have been strong for some time. The seller has not provided enough photos, with none showing the reverse, so that will almost certainly impact the final price. Given that the most common size brings ~$150, this should bring somewhat less than double. 

Vintage Halloween Nut Cup Rats Black Cat

This fine seller had four different designs, three from the same set and one from another set featuring witches, that all ended today with very strong results, contributing to the data indicating that small paper is one of the hottest sub-genres currently. Whitney made these intelligently designed nut cups during the 1920s. These sets seem to have 6 designs each. I bought all the cat/mice nut cups from the same source about a year ago for an average of $48 each. The four that ended today ranged from $76.85 to $99.99, a steep increase in one year. 

A Word on eBay....

I registered to buy and sell on eBay back in 1997 when their emphasis was on catering to those interested in offering vintage items for auction. Over the years, and seemingly at an accelerated pace, eBay has paid more attention to developing their fixed price/Buy-It-Now sales of all products at the expense of those wishing to sell through an auction format. They have also emphasized buyer protections while seemingly not doing enough to bolster reasons why sellers of vintage goods should use the site. eBay has inexorably raised their selling fees and it is hard to avoid using Paypal and being nicked their ~3.25% fee, even though eBay and Paypal had a corporate parting of the ways ~two years ago. 

Regular readers know that I have long bemoaned the "light touch" eBay takes in patrolling their listings. They introduced automatically relisting unsold items so now eBay's categories are often clogged with the same tired items no one has wanted for weeks and months on end. In short, it has become less of a desirable selling venue for those wanting to share their vintage treasures with a wide community. 

As a less desirable selling venue, the risks of selling hard-to-find vintage items through an auction format with low starting prices have increased. I no longer believe that beginning things at $9.99, let's say, and allowing the eBay-defined market to set the price is the preferred route. 

I feel that knowledgeable sellers of vintage Halloween items should use an appropriately priced BIN option with a Best Offer option activated or an auction format with a starting price that is no less than ~50% of SGV. 

I don't feel this is an ideal new direction, but I do feel it is better overall than trusting a deteriorating venue to deliver desired results when using a low-opening-price auction format for vintage Halloween goods. 

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