Roll out the red carpet to welcome this - arguably the rarest, most coveted single small paper item item from Beistle's Golden Age of production. This elusive, ingeniously designed invitation was on my HOLY GRAIL list for over two decades (I am not joking...) until I was fortunate enough to acquire one a scant few months ago. This item is very large and has an awesome presence. Issued for a single season, 1932, these almost never surface. Why is this the case? An enterprising collector contacted me several months ago to offer a theory. With minor editing I share it with you now:
“I have some information regarding the 1932 mechanical invitation and may have some insight into its rarity. I purchased the same invitation in 2010 that had the center piece torn out. I planned to repair it (no sharpies here, just a magnifying glass and sewing needles to apply glue, making sure none of it got on the decorative surface.) When the center piece was repaired and reassembled, I found that the skeleton side would not fully extend, and barely showed half of its face. In wanting to see the delightful Halloween imagery, I kept pulling until I realized that the center piece was flexing right in the area where it was originally torn and now just repaired. I stopped and disassembled it again to see what was going on. What I came across made me wonder if this could be a contributing factor to their rarity. In looking at the invitation, there are three eyelets holding the invitation together. The crucial ones are the bottom and middle eyelet. The bottom is the pivot and the middle helps form a travel stop for the center piece. The center piece has a slotted cutout in the shape of a curved arc. The ends of this arc act as a travel stop when it butts up against the center eyelet. What I discovered, is that if the virtual or imaginary center of that arc does not coincide with the center of the bottom eyelet, the slotted arc will trace a curve that is offset with the middle eyelet, and the eyelet will dig into the edge of the center piece slot preventing it from fully traversing on one side. I’m sure Beistle produced these in a batch run, so the discrepancy was no doubt transferred to all the pieces of that run. It is possible that its rarity may be due to many invitations having its center torn out and then discarded. I slightly trimmed the center slot and reassembled it and now both sides fully show the imagery. I don’t know if trimming it changes its “originality” but I felt it was worth it. Over all, the repair came out excellent. I kept the original eyelets by using a four fingered drill chuck from the tail stock of my jeweler’s lathe as a sort of mechanical finger to carefully unswage the back of the eyelet. I then used a eyelet kit to tap it back flat when done. It would have been perfect except that I had to undo the eyelets once more to find the problem. In doing it twice one eyelet developed a minor split in the edge when flattening it while the other came out perfect. To see that the invitation had even been repaired you have to hold it about six inches from your face. I have been looking for this one many years after seeing it in a collector catalog, and was immediately transfixed by the artwork. It just shouted “Halloween” to me. Anyway, I thought you might find this information valuable.”
Now, if you collect the rarest items and have an eye for superb design, you MUST NOT let this go by the wayside. It is great to see such a truly rare item on Ebay. It will be informative to see what this mint item brings. (I have just added this seller to my list of those with whom I am proud to conduct business, so bid with confidence!)
Post-sale update
Wowee!! I never thought in a million years that this invitation would bring such significant dollars. Granted, this is rare and wonderful, but over $1700 for an invitation does boggle my mind. I paid $400 for the one I snagged in a private transaction a few months ago and thought at the time I had paid what I described to another collector as a "crazy" price. The response back was that she would have gladly paid $600, so I guesstimated that this listing would end somewhere between $600-800 dollars. I received many phone calls and texts immediately after the auction, so plenty of advanced collectors were watching. All expressed astonishment. I've identified the prevailing bidder and at least one of the recorded under-bidders and they are both determined, knowledgeable and apparently deep-pocketed collectors. God bless them!