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While Halloween collectors lust after vintage costumes and antique spooky decorations, some of the scarcest Halloween collectibles are vintage and antique photographs celebrating the holiday. The allure of these old images most often lies in the costumes and characters depicted, from fascinating to downright creepy.
Halloween As We Know It Today
The origins of the Halloween holiday are dense and murky, with influences likely from multiple cultures and religions. Much of the classic Halloween tradition grew from ancient Celtic harvest festivals with pagan roots, such as Samhain. Halloween as we know it today in America took off as a holiday in the 19th century, thanks to Irish and Scottish immigrants new to the US who honored the Christian holiday, All Hallow’s Day. Fortunately, the timing coincided with the growing popularity of photography with mediums such as the daguerreotype and tintype.
From Daguerreotypes to Brownie Cameras
After a few centuries of photographic process experimentation, the daguerreotype finally offered an answer to the growing demand for portraits and other real-life, real-time documentation. Daguerreotypists such as Augustus Washington advertised his photographic services in the 1850s for just 50 cents to $10, but the process remained fairly involved and cumbersome with loads of toxic chemicals and fragile glass plates. It wasn’t until 1884 that George Eastman of Rochester, New York, invented film to replace the glass plates. Once the Kodak Brownie camera became commercially available in 1901, the rest is, as they say, history.
What does this mean for collectors of antique Halloween photographs? A perfect storm, no doubt. Just as children and adults throughout America contributed to the growing success of the new Halloween holiday during the early 20th century, tools (cameras) were also readily available to document these October spooky happenings and costumes.
Vintage Halloween Photos: Tips for Collectors
What should collectors look for when seeking vintage Halloween photos? One “buyer beware” note of caution for collectors is recognizing that a segment of antique photos marketed as Halloween photos are actually photos from theater productions. If you find a photo of a single adult dressed in an elaborate costume with a backdrop resembling a stage, this is unlikely a Halloween-time photo.
It is also worth noting that early Halloween costumes were extraordinarily homemade; it was common for children in rural locations to craft their creepy get-ups out of nothing more than rags and twine. Truth be told, some of the photographic documentation of those scrappy costumes is the creepiest, for sure.
Shop in the Off-Season
While you can certainly find vintage and antique Halloween photos on various websites year-round for dear prices, part of the fun with collecting these old images is seeking them out in person. Estate sales and auctions often have old photograph albums for sale since, at some point, many families forget who is in all their old photos.
As you are leafing through an old album, keep an eye out for photos from the fall season and Halloween celebrations; even later 20th-century Halloween photos are collectible today, such as ones of children sporting those classic cardboard boxed costumes. Some of those costumes alone often fetch hundreds of dollars on the secondary market, so it is no surprise that fans of all things Halloween would be pleased to stumble across photos of the costume in use from the same era.
Another tip for vintage Halloween photo collectors is to shop in the off-season. You will pay the highest price for these treasures in October as the leaves are falling off the trees and the days are getting longer, but if you save your hunting and collecting for the spring and summer months, you will likely stumble across more bargains. Just tuck those treasures away for a few months until the next holiday rolls around so you can enjoy them during the one and only spooky Halloween season!
Amy Moyer is the proprietor of Antmuffin: Art, Antiques & Collectibles. She holds a B.A. in Visual Art from Brown University and lives in Boston.
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