We recently acquired this fabulous 8 x 10 photo at a local flea market.  A talented amateur photographer back in the 1940’s was able to combine a shot of a pretty girl with a shot of a typical five and dime pulpy paper mache jack o’lantern.  The result is an image designed to make one do a double take.  If only such a jack o’lantern in that size really existed!  (Alas, in reality, he is probably only about eight inches high.)

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Gumball Machine Monster Jigglers

So if you haven’t been clued in to the world of jigglers yet, let me bring you up to speed. Jigglers are toys made out of a springy and flexible rubber that literally jiggles when you move it. If you were a kid between the 60’s- the 80’s, you probably had at least one. Though they came into popularity in the 1960’s, you can still find toys made like this today. In fact, you can still find some of the same jiggler designs of 40+ years ago in stores if you look hard enough, but I will address that later. Russ Berrie is famous for making larger gift ware jigglers that were sold in novelty shops and gift shops in the 60’s and 70’s. Most of their jigglers are animal characters with plastic inset eyes. They are made out of an oily rubber that will stain anything it touches if you leave it long enough, but they still have a following today regardless. Ben Cooper also made some cool jigglers including Marvel and DC super heroes and Universal Monsters. Yes, this is the Ben Cooper that made cheap Halloween costumes, but they also did dime store toys in the form of rubber jigglers. The rubber used by Ben cooper is more like the rubber on the toys I am talking about today (less oily). With the success of jigglers in the 1960’s, cheap-toy companies decided to jump on the band wagon and create small jigglers that could fit into a capsule in a gumball machine. You could fold the flexible rubber into a capsule and it would spring back good as new when the toy was removed.  Many of them are in the form of bizarre monsters, and those are the jigglers I am discussing today.

Flat Monster Jigglers just like the ones I had as a kid!

Now I should make it clear that these jigglers weren’t only sold in gumball machines. Some were also sold bagged and carded, and you could probably buy them individually in your local dime store. I remember the ones that my mom gave out at Halloween came in a big bag filled with a couple dozen of them. They were cheap to produce and kids loved them. The ones above are like the ones I had as a kid. They are what I would call flat jigglers, and they were still producing them up through at least the 1980’s when I had them.

Finger Puppet Jigglers.  That sad red fella on the far right is totally a new Jiggler.

One of the most incredible aspects of these small jigglers is that some of these designs, or bootlegs of these designs, are still being produced today. They are often sold as party favors for kids birthday parties. That means that some of these toys have had a consistent run of production for at least 40 years. In many ways that puts them in a league with Barbie, Hotwheels, and G.I. Joe when it comes to longevity, but because they are small and innocuous we never see them that way. The finger puppet jigglers are still made today. Though the designs have changed a bit over time, the concept remains the same.

It can sometimes be very difficult to tell an older jiggler from a new one, but there are a few tricks to help you decipher age. One of the easiest ways to tell age is to look at the markings. This trick I am about to mention will help you date a lot of toys besides jigglers. If the jiggler is marked “Hong Kong” it was made 1985 or prior. If it is marked “China” it is made after 1985. Another way to tell is the rubber. This is hard for me to describe in a blog post, but there is a different feel to the older rubber. When you have a China jiggler and a Hong Kong jiggler to compare you will see what I mean. They feel different. Finally, not every design has been produced over and over for years. In general, the octopus jigglers or spider jigglers aren’t being produced today and probably haven’t been for decades. The frog looking ones are the same. The main two still being produced are the finger puppets and the flat jigglers.

Octopus/ Spider Monster Jigglers.  These are some of my favorites.  Look at those crazy designs!

Frog Monster Jigglers.  Two eyes would just be too normal.  It’s either one or five with these guys.  The frogs are also some of my favorites.  I mean, just look at them.

One of my favorite aspects of jigglers is you can see their progression through time as different companies rip each others designs and make slight alterations. They shrink and grow, and they gain limbs and they lose limbs.   They come in different rubbers and plastics, and they change color as they go. As I find jigglers digging through bins at flea markets I watch them evolve over time, and I feel like a biologist finding a new species when I find a slight variation on a design. Flea markets are the Galapagos Islands of jigglers! It makes them particularly fun to collect. I never find the exact same jiggler twice.

The same jiggler can take on many forms.  Clearly these are the same design, but the one on the right has a horn.  Based on the rubber, the one on the right is also probably the older one.

These two have very similar faces, but different legs.  Another one of my favorite aspects of these toys is their evolution over the decades they were created.

These two may be the closest yet, but if you look carefully you will see that they are two totally different sculpts.  One is most likely a shameless rip off of the other.  They weren’t even trying to make it something different!

That tiny guy on the left was probably created in the 80’s and is clearly based on the guy on the right.  That being said, they made a lot of changes in the leg department.  What a crazy evolution!

I also want to take time to point out how weird and awesome some of these designs are. They are brilliant! As an artist, I love every one of them as these incredible and interesting sci-fi monsters. This is because many of these designs are based on work by well known artists such as Wally Wood and Basil Wolverton that were done for a line of Topps trading cards (the jigglers are clearly bootlegs). Others are based on other toy line such as The Outer Space Men by Colorforms, and some designs were done in house at the cheap toy companies based on these designs. Of course, as bootlegs of work by popular artists, these toys have garnered quite a following.

Does Barry look familiar to you? His doppelganger is in the top left corner of the photo of the spider/ octopus jigglers.

My fried Ed is in the top row second from the right.  You can probably thank Wally Wood for these nightmares.

Remember those multi-eyed frog jigglers?  You can call them Steve!

Finally Iris shares a striking resemblance to the rat bug jiggler in the next photo down.  This is the least obvious of the bootlegs, but the idea is still present.

These Jigglers are more figural.  Two monkeys, a bootleg of a larger jiggler line called De Horribles, and a rat bug.  I like the rat bug (but really, I just like them all).

Thanks to having a bag of flat jigglers as a kid from a Halloween party, I became hooked on monster jigglers. Their wacky and wonderfully disturbing designs intrigue me and keep me searching the depths of dirty boxes at flea markets to rescue them from obscurity. It is a worthwhile pursuit as far as I am concerned.

Some teeny tiny jigglers.  I put a big one in the back for comparison.  These guys are less than half the size of their counterparts, and therefore are even harder to find!  They are less than an inch long!

Finally, some really cool jigglers that probably weren’t in gumball machines.  These are probably from a dime store based on their size.  Still, these are really great and were well worth sharing!

The post The Amazing Variety of Gumball Machine Monster Jigglers appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I’ve been asking that question – and formulated several reasonable answers – when it comes to the Primal Rage figure Necrosan.

Here’s Necrosan in all its glory! This figure has gotten really, really expensive lately.

Primal Rage is an arcade game that was released by Midway in 1994. Midway was responsible for the hyper violent yet massively popular Mortal Kombat series of fighting games. To capitalize on both the popularity of fighting games as well as the popularity of dinosaurs thanks to Jurassic Park, Midway created yet another hyper violent fighter starring giant dinosaurs and apes pounding each other senseless with inordinate amounts of gore spouting out across the screen.

Primal Rage ad courtesy of arcade-museum.com

What should have been a recipe for inevitable success in 1994 was not as successful as many had hoped. While Primal Rage could be found at arcades across the country, it was competing against an ever-expanding roster of fighting games that were all competing for hard-earned quarters. A sequel was planned and initially developed, but Midway decided that it wouldn’t be lucrative enough to justify production.

Despite Primal Rage only receiving one arcade entry into the series, there’s actual quite a bit of Primal Rage merchandise available to collect. It was ported onto virtually every system that was available at the time. It also received a board game, a comic book, and, I wish I was kidding, a NOVEL. But of course, it also had a corresponding series of action figures, made by Playmates toys. They were big and chunky and meant to be thrown around the same way you would have thrown around LJN WWF Wrestlers in the 1980s. They all featured actions that helped recreate their special moves in the game.

Despite not receiving a second game, Playmates actually produced a second series of action figures. Some of these were repaints of first series figures, but there were two new characters who would have shown up in the second arcade game: Slash Fang (a sabretooth tiger) and Necrosan (a…uh…a skinned…dragon…thing?).  Had the second arcade game been made, Necrosan would have been the final boss, which is something the first arcade game was lacking.

Here’s a look at the back of the package showing Necrosan, Slash Fang, and some of the other repainted Series 2 figures.

The toy series was scrapped after this second series of figures, and they were quickly discounted at Kay Bee Toys at rock bottom prices.

So why has this figure suddenly been selling at various points of the year for more than $500?

Yes, that is a real number. While most collectors of 1980s action figures scoff at the notion that anything made beyond 1989 is worth anything at all, there’s a figure from the latter part of the decade that collectors really, really want to have. To be fair, more recent sales put it closer to the $100 to $200 range for boxed, mint examples, but still, that’s much more than just about any other action figure from that particular era.

I have a couple of reasonable theories.

1.) It’s definitely a short-run figure, and I’m basing that on personal experience. I remember seeing piles of figures on clearance at Kay Bee, including the aforementioned Slash Fang. However, maybe I saw Necrosan in a store once if at all when it was a new toy. While scalpers of the day added to the rarity of certain infamous figures like the first Princess Leia, the truth is that they’ve all been very easy to obtain and aren’t worth much at all. Necrosan is one of the few domestically action figures of the 1990s that is legitimately rare.

2.) Primal Rage is picking up steam as a collectible. When I started collecting Primal Rage toys about six years ago, it was because I remembered them fondly, but it was also because they were so darned cheap, even on eBay! I could pick up large lots for $20 plus shipping without difficulty. It seems like people have come to appreciate the line (anything with dinosaurs seems to be collectible these days, if the prices on Dino Riders and Jurassic Park toys are to be believed), and so if they want a complete series of figures, then they have to track down Necrosan.

3.) He provides some of the only evidence that a second game was planned. Now, for years, Primal Rage 2 was sort of an urban legend and almost no information on the game could be found. However, my favorite arcade currently in operation, Galloping Ghost, installed a copy of Primal Rage 2, and now, you can see gameplay videos of the unreleased arcade game. Many unproduced games have found second lives through emulators, but while you can finally play Primal Rage 2 today, you couldn’t back in 1996 like what had been planned. The fact that Necrosan got released as a tie-in for a game that never got produced is pretty remarkable, as is the fact that…

4.) He is just plain crazy and horrifying. What parent would encourage their children to play with this thing? It absolutely looks like it came straight from Clive Barker’s nightmares. You have a dragon WITH ITS SKIN RIPPED OFF, revealing its innards, it’s musculature, and it’s skeletal structure. Yes, there’s a ton of merchandise today for Attack on Titan’s Colossal Titan, but all of it is meant for adult collectors, not children. I think it’s appealing to those who like monster figures, and that includes plenty of collectors out there.

A face only a collector could love…

Now, I think all of these reasons provide a more than plausible explanation as to why Necrosan has gotten to be such an expensive action figure lately. I think some combination of the four reasons is responsible for this, but I couldn’t tell you which ones carry the most weight for the people willing to spend that kind of money for it.

As for me, I bought it for $15 at a toy show last summer. I knew that was a fair price – I think maybe it was selling for $50 to $75 at the time – but I didn’t realize how much of a bargain it would be in the long run. It goes to show that the market is constantly in flux, so if you really want something for your collection and can comfortably afford it, it’s best to do so as soon as possible, because you don’t know when it’s going to become the next impossibly expensive thing that everyone else has to have!

The post Primal Rage Necrosan: A Terrifying 90s Figure that’s Terrifyingly Expensive! appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Sometime in the early 1960's, two trick or treaters stopped in front of the news-stand to pose for this Halloween snapshot.

What a great photo!  It combines two things I love – old magazines and Halloween.  Anyone over forty will probably admit to going out on Halloween wearing one of those lame, out-of-the-box costumes at least once during their trick-or-treating years.  It was so easy for parents.  I know I had a Minnie Mouse costume, and Jim was Donald Duck more than once. They were made of a silky, synthetic fabric that I believe was flammable.  The plastic masks were held on with thin elastic bands, but at least they were easy to flip up on top of your head for better vision when walking from house to house.

By the early sixties, Hanna-Barbera was on a roll.  Huckleberry Hound was introduced in 1958, and Yogi Bear became a break-out star in 1961.  The older kid on the right has the cool Yogi costume; his/her younger sibling appears to be wearing a more generic clown costume.

Of course, what really makes this photo for me are all of the magazines on display behind the kids.  It looks like Fidel Castro is on the cover of the “Look” magazine.  This could very well be from Halloween 1962, in which case the Cuban Missile Crisis had, literally, just ended.  The kids, however, probably don’t care.  They just want to load up on those nice, full-size candy bars that everyone got back then – and avoid the apples at all cost!

The post Happy Halloween! A Nostalgic Snapshot of a 1960’s Yogi Bear Trick or Treater appeared first on The Collector Gene.

When most people start collecting little rubber and plastic figures, part of their reasoning for buying tiny toys often stems from the fact that these collections don’t take up a lot of space. You can fit hundreds of tiny figures in a shoe box if you want to, and they don’t take up a lot of shelf space if you choose to display them (and why wouldn’t you!). Beyond their ability to occupy very little space, most little figure toy lines have dozens if not hundreds of designs to collect, as well as tons of color variations. They also tend to come in all sorts of wacky and wonderful character designs, which make little rubber figure collecting very popular with both kids and adults.

One of the more popular little rubber figure lines from my childhood was Monster in my Pocket. They came out in 1990, and found success all over the world. The line consisted of a bunch of small, solid colored rubber monsters based on popular monsters from international folklore and popular culture. Everything from Frankenstein’s Monster to Baba Yaga are represented in the line. If you don’t remember Monster in my Pocket yourself or you want to know more, here is a quick pictorial crash course on the line.

A Sampling of Series 1 Monster in my Pockets.

A Sampling of Series 2 Monster in my Pockets

A Sampling of Super Scary Monster in my Pockets

U.K. Kellogg’s Sports Monsters in my Pocket

A Sampling of Monster in My Pocket Wrestlers

Now that you have met some of the Monster in my Pocket gang, I can get to the main focus of this article. Clearly I have spent a little bit of time collecting Monster in my Pocket. The photos above represent a small fraction of my collection. Monster in my Pocket were made by Matchbox and were sold in retail stores everywhere in the country. They were popular and cheap to produce, so they naturally found their way into promotional tie-ins with restaurants and food products. Most of the Monster in my Pocket figures that were produced for product tie-ins were Series 1 figures cast in different colors than the red, green, yellow, and purple seen above. Many were produced in Series 2 neon colors, with occasional oddities in slightly different shades of bright colors, or a dark forest green color.

Monsters in strange colors.  These Monster in my Pockets were packaged with food tie-ins and other Monster in My Pocket products other than the main figure lines.

Monster in my Pocket had an American cereal tie in with Nabisco Frosted Wheat Squares. They also had a promotion with Bob’s Big Boy.

The tie in that is really the point of this article is a promotion run with Spaghetti-O’s. Every kid loves Spaghetti-O’s, and what could be better than getting a free toy with your purchase? Of course they didn’t put a Monster in my Pocket in the actual can of Spaghetti-O’s. That would make a mess. You had to mail away to get them. Since kids are impatient, and Spaghetti-O’s needed to get you excited to have to wait to receive your toys, they had to find a big way to get kids attention. Behold the inflatable Spaghetti-O’s Monster that is the size of an actual child!

This inflatable display is based on a Series 2 monster design, Dryad. I wouldn’t call this figure the obvious character choice that kids could relate to, but it kind of looks like it could be made out of spaghetti when you color it red-orange like this, so I am going to go along with Spaghetti-O’s decision making process on this one.

When this 4ft tall pile of inflatable awesomeness found its way onto eBay several years ago I made it my mission to make him mine. In a collection that could otherwise fit in a shoe box, he is certainly a stand out. I have always liked store displays, and when I can find a display based on something I specifically collect it becomes a must own for my collection. I only wish that my local super market had had one of these guys on display when I was a kid. I am pretty sure a Monster in my Pocket taller than I was would have made my day. It sure made my day when I found one as an adult.

The post Spaghetti-O’s Monster in my Pocket Display: One Monster That Won’t Fit In Your Pocket… appeared first on The Collector Gene.

It seems fitting that cats are associated with Halloween. We especially think of witches and their black cats. Often thought to be “familiars” to witches or malevolent assistants who could assist in the witch’s magic spells, being a black cat in Medieval Europe could lead to the loss of all nine lives in a hurry. The Pilgrims in early America weren’t too fond of them either. Owning a black cat in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600’s didn’t help if you wanted to avoid going to the witch trials.

Of course both witches and cats can be scary at times and both can be diabolical in their own ways. Why is it that a cat can enter a room full of people and always give the greatest affection to the person who hates cats the most? Coincidence? I think not. Why will the cat then go to the center of the room and start licking their butt in full view of everyone and look up with that “you gotta a problem with this” look. Attitude – cats are full of it.

These soft, cuddly creatures that we give unlimited access to our homes also happen to be carnivorous killing machines with sharp talons and fangs. My father used to say that if they were bigger than us they would eat us. I don’t doubt it for a second! Yet, I am a cat person. We share our home with two of them and I grew up with cats. They can show real affection on their own terms. They know where the litter box is and they are also self- cleaning. They can be a little annoying when they are hungry which is just about any time they aren’t sleeping, but who among us doesn’t enjoy eating and sleeping?

I’m just glad we’re bigger than they are.

Please enjoy these pictures of some of our cat Halloween decorations. Most are German and made in the early twentieth century. Our cats have sniffed them and approve!

A combination of candy containers, flat cardboard decorations, a Steiff black cat, celuloid roly poly, and ceramic cat.

Some more elaborate black cat candy containers (and a red cat).

Embossed cardboard fighting cats with moon.

This lovely lady wouldn’t fit on the scanner, but the main goal is for you to see her beautiful black cat friend in all of his glory.

Let’s be honest, cats don’t like to smile.  This is a more realistic interpretation of a typical cat expression.

Cardboard black cat door hanger.

Don’t try this at home with a real cat.

The post Halloween Cats appeared first on The Collector Gene.

It’s October, the month when grown men do crazy things like this.  This vintage photo, most likely from the 1960’s, is from my collection.  It’s hard to say why these men are in costume, but let’s assume it’s a Halloween party at the local American Legion or men’s club.  The guy who’s supposed to be Mr. Clean REALLY looks like Mr. Clean.  My favorite is the “house frau” on the right.  Note that the youngest guy has the lamest costume.  One of the best parts of getting older is not caring what others think.  By that measure, I’ll bet the man in the coconut bra is the oldest!

Get your costume on.  Halloween is coming!

The post Mr. Clean & Friends – Grown Men in Costume appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I purchased this skull a few years ago at a Pennsylvania flea market.  I walked into the market with $52 in my wallet, which doesn’t usually go a long way at an antique flea market.  So of course I found this piece in the first booth I went in, and it was priced at $50.  Needless to say, I was frustrated.  I really liked the skull, but buying it would wipe me out before I was even finished my first row of dealers.  We were also going to check a few more flea markets and shops later that day, which made it even tougher to fathom spending all of my money immediately, especially on an object I knew nothing about.

At first I left it on the table and walked away figuring I would probably go back to buy it after I made sure that there was nothing I wanted more at the flea market.  However, a few minutes later and about half way down the second row of the market, I realized that I didn’t want to risk it.  I really liked the skull, and I knew I would be upset if someone else bought it while I was walking around.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted it.  I cut back to the dealer’s booth again and bought it, and I have had no regrets about blowing all of my money in the first booth I went in at the flea market that day.  There was nothing else I wanted more, and in my opinion this piece would have been hard to top.  A lot of people like to collect what they know, but I find that the objects I tend to like best in my collection are the objects I didn’t know I needed until I saw them.  Some of the fun of collecting, to me, is finding an object you love, and then finding out you love it even more as you learn more about it.  The Le Macabre skull did that for me.

The Le Macabre skull is made out of plaster, with the name of its place of origin, Le Macabre, Meard Street SOHO, stamped into its forehead.  It is just about life-sized, though it is stylized and kind of elongated if you look at the skull from its side.  The back of the skull is flat and hollow, and the eye sockets are hollow as well.  It has a little metal hook imbedded in the plaster so you can hang it on the wall.  The skull is probably from the 1950’s, which is part of what made it appeal to me, and for some reason I like skulls, so it had double appeal.  The damage to his chin was there when I bought him, and even though I could totally restore it myself, I haven’t done it yet.  I don’t know why. Maybe sometimes I like to think that he received his battle scar in some really epic way and it is a part of his history.  He is a very intriguing advertising piece, and the more I learn about him, the more I love him hanging on my wall.

One of the biggest mysteries with the Le Macabre skull is this: How did it end up in the United States?  Le Macabre was a coffee and espresso bar in SOHO London.  This I knew when I bought the skull because it is stamped on his forehead, and I got an original postcard from Le Macabre with it.

I love this postcard.  The imagery is great, and it adds a sense of humor to the skull plaque.   I have it framed and hanging under the plaque on my wall.  None of this, however, explains why these two pieces crossed the pond and ended up in New Jersey, and the more I research Le Macabre, the more I still don’t understand how these two ended up here.

When I first went to research this piece on the internet back when I bought it, the only information I could find out at the time was that Le Macabre existed from the 1950’s through the 1970’s, and that it offered a place for London jazz musicians and rock musicians to perform.  There was also some reference to Orson Wells hanging out at Le Macabre, which I thought was pretty cool.  Le Macabre had coffin shaped tables and skeleton murals on the wall, but there was never any mention of skulls like mine hanging in the bar anywhere.  I was happy to know that Le Macabre played an integral part in the early history of jazz and rock n roll in England, but there were no pictures to help me understand what part my skull played in the bar.  Were there more than one?  Was it for decoration or a souvenir?  For several years I just assumed that I would never fully understand the skull plaque, but that was okay because I liked it, and I liked that it represented pre-British invasion rock and jazz in London.

It wasn’t until late last year that I decided to research my skull again, and a lot more information has surfaced on Le Macabre thanks to two British news reels, one from 1958 and one from 1959, that have since been posted to the internet.

The first newsreel I found in the internet was the 1958 newsreel called “It’s the Age of the Teenager”, and I couldn’t believe what I saw when I watched it.  If you go to the 00.32 minute mark right in the beginning of the film and look behind the bartender’s head, you will see a skull just like mine hanging on the wall!  Mystery solved!  Well, sort of.  If you keep watching through the rest of the “Le Macabre” section of the film, you will see several other skulls hanging up throughout the joint.  Some are used over light fixtures, and others are just hanging on the wall as decoration.  I still can’t believe that these films exist, and that through them I could finally learn in some capacity why my skull plaque exists.  The rest of the film is an interesting look at British teenagers in the 1950’s.  It doesn’t spend too much time in coffee bars outside of Le Macabre, but it is definitely worth watching and kind of funny by today’s standards.  Follow this link to the website for Pathe to watch the filmstrip.

The 1959 strip is in color and called “Look at Life: Coffee Bar”, and it shows Le Macabre at about the 07.01 minute mark.  If you look towards the ceiling in one of the early scenes, you might catch skulls like mine hanging up near the ceiling.  They are covering light fixtures that will make the eyes glow when they are lit.  The whole news reel is a rather interesting look into the rise of the coffee bar in London and its clientele and significance.  It is fascinating and worth watching if you want to learn more about the “coffee craze”.    Apparently there were dozens of coffee and espresso bars in SOHO in the 1950’s, but there were so many that it became difficult for them to thrive with all of the competition.  The “coffee craze” in London was certainly not a point in history on my radar before buying the Le Macabre skull, but this is why I love buying pieces of history that I know very little about until I get them home to research them.  You never know what you will find out.   Look at Life: Coffee Bar

Of course, there are still a lot of things I do not know about this skull and about Le Macabre.  I still don’t know if they sold these skulls as souvenirs or if my skull was salvaged when Le Macabre shut down in the 1970’s.  Are there many other skull plaques still in existence out there?  I have never seen another one, but then again, I am nowhere near London.  If anyone out there has any more information about this skull or Le Macabre itself, please share it on the comments section of this site.  I would love to know any information that I can get.

It is very rare to buy an object with very little information and to find out as much as I did from the Le Macabre skull plaque.  Most of the time you aren’t that lucky, and you are left to speculate as to the purpose of an object.  I certainly never could have dreamed that somewhere along the line someone, and in this case more than one person, would post video evidence of my find in its original context.  When we first started this website almost a year ago, I was planning on writing about the Le Macabre skull. However, because I knew very little about it, I was just planning to post a picture and what little bit I knew in hopes that somewhere along the line a person who knew more about it would comment on the site and I would have an answer.  Then the internet surprisingly answered a few of my questions for me.  It has been a fun ride so far figuring out the origins of Le Macabre and the little piece of it I hang on my wall and look at every day, but I have a feeling there is still a lot to learn.

Article Update:

Hey everyone!  This is the first time I have had the opportunity to update an article after gaining some valuable information on its subject matter from another passionate collector.  Hopefully this will be a trend!  Since posting my article about Le Macabre and my skull I was contacted by Del Fuller, another fan of Le Macabre who was actually fortunate enough to visit Le Macabre before it closed in the 70’s.  He and his friend Keith Ryan have supplied me with the following images of other Le Macabre memorabilia and were generous enough to let me share it with the internet.  Please enjoy!

This is a different post card made to promote Le Macabre.  Skeletons and naked ladies were kind of Le Macabre’s thing.

This is an original menu from Le Macabre.  They used the same image from my postcard on the cover.  It is kind of fascinating to see how they made changes to the menu by just crossing things off and adding other things in.

This is a smaller skull than mine measuring about 3″ by 2 1/4″.  We aren’t quite sure of its practical purpose, but it was used on the tables at Le Macabre and has “Saturday 17^th Jan 1959″ written in ink on the bottom.
We still aren’t sure as to whether they sold Le Macabre skulls or if patrons just swiped them, making Del, Keith, and I lucky enough to own what we have.  Either way, it is a fascinating place, and I am so grateful to learn from other collectors and fans about the objects I am passionate about.

The post The Le Macabre Skull appeared first on The Collector Gene.

This jack o’lantern may be smiling, but there’s something slightly menacing about it.  Of course, that’s part of his appeal to collectors.  Over seven inches in height, he’s made of a paper pulp product that was shaped by pressing into a mold and hardened.  Then he was given a coat of bright orange paint, and a thin paper insert fills in the openings with his red/yellow eyes and nice straight teeth.  There’s a hole in the bottom into which a candle could be inserted to light him up.  Picture him with his eyes and teeth glowing.  Pretty cool, right?  Of course, he’s made of completely flammable material, so you can imagine how safe putting a lighted candle inside of him was, but that’s how it was done “back in the day.”  These American-made Halloween decorations date from the late 1930’s to the early 1950’s and are highly collectible.  It’s very difficult to find them in good condition with their paper inserts intact.

Have a safe and Happy Halloween!  Best wishes from Collectorgene!

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Once you start collecting vintage Halloween items, you notice how frequently fruit and vegetable-headed figures show up.  Here’s a good example of a small, incidental bisque figurine that was probably produced in the 1930’s and sold for a nickel or a dime.  It might have been a party favor or just a little knick-knack, but there’s certainly nothing scary about him.  He’s about three inches tall and is marked “Japan” on his back.  And if his jaunty little top hat, crossed eyes, and big grin don’t put a smile on your face, nothing will.

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