Herding Black Cats for Sale

Vintage Halloween Collectibles
from Bindlegrim on Etsy

Thirteen black cats (above) give or take recent additions (below) minus some recent adoptions - appeared for sale on the Bindlegrim Etsy shoppe over these last couple of days (February 2026). And please note that these are only listed for a limited time... until February 28th... when a different thematic batch (of Halloween characters) take their place.

Multiple vintage Halloween collectible black cats
have made there way to the Bindlegrim Etsy shoppe.

Again, these vintage Halloween collector items are separate from the research library of THR or other ventures from the Bindlegrim personalities. There is no requirement to purchase any guidebooks from THR's archive nor buy a subscription, membership, cross-country travel tickets, etc. That said, if you love new discoveries about old things - check out THR's store link on Etsy. There are now six books --- four wordy digests, and two art picture surveys - all offering data from the archive's nearly 650 vintage catalog library.

Six new best-selling guidebooks getting five-star reviews 

from vintage Halloween collector seeking market research.

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Are you new to The Halloween Retrospect? THR, after 2+ years of publishing, now offers a six-book research library of data based on sources (such as those above) rather than second-hand guesses that have riddled the collector environment! THR books now include two art-book-style surveys Halloween Artifacts, V1: Lighting and Halloween Artifacts, V2 Festoons as well as four article-based digests The Halloween Retrospect Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4. For a small niche publisher – THR is happy to celebrate sales of 400 books – see also @halloweenretrospecs on Instagram. 

THR Etsy book shop listing w/six digests and art books.

Two art books sold together, for vintage Halloween collectors.

Halloween digests offer collectibles info not found elsewhere.

See the Instagram post (below from @halloweenretrrospecs) for additional detail views of these vintage Halloween collectibles by Beistle. There are nearly 50 original envelopes (most with original content) of various products ranging from complete party outfits to individual envelopes for select items such as invitations, etc. (Note that the quite a few are vertically stacked, at top right, to fit the space - so perhaps a future photo will include the front image of all those shelved there).

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By the way, many of these were saved from the moldering backing pages of a salesman sample book that THR has not previously shown in its own various printed or online materials. These items were carefully removed by a paper expert some years ago, and THR is forever grateful for their expertise. 

As for current THR archive storage, someone had asked how these items were currently stored for preservation. My current favorite containers are called Crystal Clear from clearbags.com online made of BOPP/OPP which is considered an archive safe material. The company offers tons of sizes (thoough you may have to manually adjust if you have a great deal of variously sized items). For the interior, I cut pieces of 2ply museum board to support the vintage item which means (in case of these fragile envelopes) I put the envelope on one side and contents on the other - offering extra protection through separation (below). Unfortunately a bit of glare is the problem after that which can make photography a bit of a problem... 

Ghoul with three pumpkins likely by Whitney.

Meanwhile, the digital records of that Beistle sampler (in addition to the actual items that were saved from the original deteriorating container) are still referenced by THR for various hints and revelations that the original layout provide. It was used a primary source with Halloween Artifacts, Volume 2: Festoons. If you are interested in an older THR publication - please check out The Halloween Retrospect on Etsy.

Halloween Stained Glass Window

 

Bindlegrim is very excited to be back exploring the warm glow of autumn light... with a special Halloween Window created as a one-time insert included only as a freebie with each copy of the new vintage Halloween collectibles guide The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4. To start then, let's just begin this blog entry with various arty views of the windows, at times together with the book set as described via THR's etsy bookstore or recent blog entry "Vol 4 Halloween Retrospect."

Dual-side faux stained glass paper window (2 shown) for THR.

Not to scale: window shown (right) with book trio inset (left).

Faux stained glass windows assembled by hand are limited.

Detail of matte color tissue paper that creates a warm glow.

Following is a description for these windows --- importantly noting once again that they are not-for-sale on their own, but only included as a free insert with copies of the March 2025 vintage Halloween collectibles guidebook series The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4. (Etsy link here).

To begin, Bindlegrim designs are inspired by research pursued by THR that proves the originals to be vintage 1940's products created by Milton Bradley. Those originals hail from a time that included well-known art contributors (such as Louise D. Tessin) when the company is regularly involved in education (not only entertainment) and regularly publishing a magazine for educators called American Childhood. (Internet Archive link here). And while the new items are true to the general feel of vintage pieces, the modern Halloween Window cannot be mistaken as such, because Bindlegrim's version is deliberately different in size, imagery, color, and production method (and collages the four characters into one space). 

As for construction, the Bindlegrim versions are made of a thick 2-ply museum board frame which has been laser cut by the artist yet hand-assembled in the final steps. Still, the result is a doubled-sided decoration with colored tissue paper inside (very old school) which by result means either side is equally presentable as front or perhaps simultaneously from both sides at once. The tissue paper glows with a brilliant color while the framework remains strong and steady.

But again, this is part of a set (shown below) and Bindledgrim is not selling these - they are free with a copy of THR's newest edition of research from its archive library publications.

THR, V4 is shown here with book, crossword, and decoration.

A little bit about vintage Halloween collectibles guides are in order here, particularly the newest book that releases March 2025 by THR. If you are not familiar with THR publications - basically the archive library publishes research that utilizes many hundreds of primary sources from its collection - to better understand the history of ye olde holiday market. So far there have been four research digests and one art survey book (with more planned in future). The newest of these digests is The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4 with book cover shown below (see THR's website or THR's online book shop).   

Cover art for The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4 by THR publications.

While many preview images of the book are available THR's website or THR's online book shop (or even via Instagram @halloweenretrospecs) here are a few to make sure this blog entry is complete...  

Page preview of The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4.

The Halloween Retrospect, V4 book, puzzle & decor.

THR, V4 featuring an homage window by Bindlegrim

Well, to close this blog entry, Bindlegrim might advise that while this vintage-style artist has had the pleasure of being involved with Volume 1 and Volume 4 digests... THR since it's first release in June 2023 has five books now full of data or images about vintage Halloween collectibles of the past. They are great references for seasoned or new collectors of the hobby.... and here is an up-to-date image of those that the bookstore currently offers:

The Halloween Retrospect Vol 1,2,3,4 & Halloween Artifacxts.

Hope you enjoy and if you do, perhaps Bindlegrim will continue to explore such Halloween lighting projects in future!?!?

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Project for THR Volume 1

Okay, okay, so brushing past the fact that Bindlegrim made the mistake of waking up in the real world  (with things like stale coffee, office banter, and dangerous commutes) seems it all just put hin back to sleep, dreaming about the garden at Ichabod's Cottage to see if there's a pumpkin vine or two still crawling along the ground. And so this little project came to be...

First of all, for sure, Bindlegrim loves vintage Halloween! With so many direct influences from vintage objects on Bindlegrim's artwork for lanterns, postcards,  etc., there was destined to be some kind of project that involved that olde stuff more directly. Looks like this is it. An archive library, The Halloween Retrospect, houses a whole bunch of vintage information objects (including content from nearly 500 vintage catalogs) and decided to put together a small digest of research from those sources. Of course, that's going to need some work on the book (particularly the cover), and then there's the website, creating a logo, and on and on. But, well, it's all ready now, and here to share. 

So, Bindlegrim had fun at first revisiting some old ghouls from an early lantern, and found this witch face from the very first lantern prototype in 2011.

4 sides of Bindlegrim prototype lantern from 2011

Once in a layout, she took over and let the scene coalesce around her..., and here is the cover for the book which should be available around end of July and/or beginning of August. (It's ready but has a layout bug that needs fixing). 

Cover art for The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 1 by Bindlegrim

That offered a chance to do something more with the art, to offer the books a little extra something to go with them. From out of the cover art, four bookmark-tallies were created to accompany the mailer. Here they are below:

Set of 4 bookmark-tallies, an extra with official copies of the book.

The book also comes with an 11"x17" fold out poster featuring a 1926 Halloween ad of products for schools (very fun stuff), and has some nice color and black and white illustrations across 32 pages. It's a 9"x6" publication, much like those old novelty catalogs, and is sure to have some good info for those into vintage Halloween collectibles. Here are some sneak peek images:

The Halloween Retrospect Vol 1, with poster and 4 tally cards.

The Halloween Retrospect Vol 1, with poster and 4 tally cards.

Oh, and last but not least, Bindlegrim put together a little website for the project: https://halloweenretrospect.com, and the logo below is a link there. Hope you enjoy the return of Bindlegrim, and the book...! 

6th Annual Halloween Trunk Show

I've had some great fun this past week creating graphics for the Sixth Annual Halloween Trunk Show coming this October 8th here in Denver! Using the same beloved vintage image (inset) that's come to be a part of this show's calling card, I've shaken things up just a tiny bit with graphic touches of Halloween orange and black, to toy visually with references to the number six.

The official announcement is beginning to make its way through the Halloween channels - and more news will be coming up as more information is updated on the show's new website: www.halloweentrunkshow.com. 

I will be there with a large batch of Hallowe'en cards (series of nine images), the glossy and standard printed editions of the Halloween poetry book The Pumpkin Dream, and a pandora's box full of vintage finds from Halloween's past. It will be my first year at this show, with some well-known names that I'm sure you will recognize below, such as my favorite local Halloween mentor: Johanna Parker...! 

See you there - and bring all of your six senses!

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Halloween Trunk Show - 6th Annual Hosted by Sam Robinson Featuring hand-crafted delights, vintage finds, botanicals,and homemade treats by Erica McNeish. When: Saturday, October 8th: 12 noon to 6 pm Where: Leo's Garage 1563 S Pearl St., Denver 80209 ~~ Vendors ~~ Johanna Parker: www.johannaparkerdesign.com/ Pome: www.pomedenver.com Erica McNeish: ericamcneish.com Cindy Habermann: Creative Hands Heide Murray: web.mac.com/allgoodwishes/Site Pearl Clothing: www.pearlclothing.etsy.com Jil Cappucio: www.jilcappuccio.com/ Ed and Sherry Mamasian: Sticks and Things Rabbit Shadow Farms: www.rabbitshadow.com Mysti Gulsrud: Dia De Los Muertos Jewelry  www.delphdesign.com Mr. Bumble Bindelgrim: www.bindlegrim.com And last but not least: Sam Robinson: aka "Manorisms" past show promoter for "Gifts for Yule" and "Spring Fling" More information coming soon! Please visit the website for future udpates: www.halloweentrunkshow.com

Halloween Kisses

While I would like to someday say the most popular image on the flickr account is original, it is actually this groovy little piece of vintage Halloween paper. This is the paper seal for the top of what was likely a plastic bag of candy, (and now has well over 500 views based solely on web traffic searches for terms like "original molasses Halloween kiss").

Based on the company info, (of Allan Candy Company in Aldershot), history would place this around 1943-1961. And here is some interesting information about the Canadian molasses kiss candy (which I had no idea until after I started to research the item): www.taddlecreekmag.com/molasses-the-ultimate-treat

I got this from a stack of ephemera at the Craven Farm holiday show, held in November in Snohomish, Washington (near Seattle) -- from the tables of incredible Halloween product designer Hobgoblin. (Check out this fun fall photoshoot with Hobgoblin , and this ghost created by Hobgoblin).  Personally, I was instantly charmed by the simple imagery, (that special character of the witch face), and the classic silhouette color scheme in orange and black.

In retrospect, this was a definite inspiration!

Rock Schlock Vintage Halloween Music

Taking a break here from personal projects... (to look at a hobby of hunting down the more alternative side of holiday audio and video - those bits belonging to the more obscure catalog of holiday kitsch and novelty). At some point I'll have to create a more defined list of these interesting links.

For a couple of years I was mixing together old Halloween-themed music from the 1920's to 1940's. (See a short post on these really old tunes at Halloween Music at 78 RPM). This was great fun to share at Halloween... and really stunned people to hear that such songs existed for the holiday. (Most of us all hear the same old standard lists when it comes to jazz or 50's music.... and I'm so glad the internet has allowed us to get less "encapsulated views" of these eras).

grim (cover photo for a mix of vintage Halloween tunes)

As I started searching the internet for more content for these mixes... searching for terms like "ghost" or "Halloween" and the years.... I think I must have stumbled across one of my now favorite radio stations WFMU. This station has some awesome playlists archived! One of my favorites for novelty Halloween music (aside from the sadly defunct Greasy Kid Stuff) is a show called Fool's Paradise:

WFMU - Fool's Paradise

The show hosted by Rex Doane, is awesome all year, but check out the shows dated at the end of October for Halloween rock schlock and novelty sounds from the fifties and sixties. There's a two hour show for each year from 1999 up to the present!

Seriously cool connections to this station include the WFMU Ichiban (Japanese for #1) blog:

WFMU's Rock and Soul Ichiban Blog

Amd this artist and Ichiban blogger:

FLICKR: JRPOPARTZ

A Brief History of The Pumpkin Dream (Part 4) - Cautionary Vectors

A continuation from A Brief History of The Pumpkin Dream (Part 3)

As the idea to illustrate "October Dreams: A Cautionary Tale" became an objective, a new problem developed: I had recently switched systems and my ancient web developer's student copy of Adobe Photoshop 5 and Illustrator 8 (from 1999...!?) would no longer work on the newer system -- and I certainly couldn't afford to buy those expensive Adobe programs and still complete this project. I was very depressed about this situation, feeling once again I was trying to take on another project beyond my means...

As I tried to figure out what to do, I thought I should at least dabble with some trial dowloads to see if it was worth the loss of funds (and touch up on some old skills). My first trial was with Illustrator CS5. And I thought it would be fun to see how well I could re-create, and accurately, some old vintage Halloween Decorations.

These cats are from a Beistle Halloween decoration from the 1950's: the top is a scan of the original and the lower image is a wacom pen trace (with some obvious color tweaks). I'm not sure I had really learned how to use the pressure sensitivity at this point - but I did appreciate Illustrator's ability to selectively drag out and increase line widths in certain areas along the line.

The next images is from a frightening looking pumpkin face from 1931 by Dennison. Again, I couldn't quite figure out how to use the pressure sensitivity to achieve fatter/thinner lines. With this guy I drew the shapes and used lower layers to ink in the color areas. And I believe I was using a new ability to paint vector swaths. (The upper version is scanned - the lower version is my wacom trace vector version):

In both instances I was happy with how accurately the images could be created into vector! This wasn't very helpful though, because Illustrator CS5 was still out of reach. (I wish Adobe would let you upgrade in installments toward having the entire suite. There was no way I was going to buy Illustrator which I needed first, then later buy each program separately and spend even more money to get needful Photoshop, Premiere, etc).

As I tried to figure out what to do - the trials continued with AI CS5 on my own work...

Mentioned previously, I had a sketchbook full of work from trying to develop a three-dimensional project. As raw material, it then seemed logical to recreate these sketches. I imagined this might then be a good way of developing and creating my illustrations for the poem. My first go was with this scarecrow sketch:

See also my additional test manually/digitally recreating pencil sketches in the first blog entry (Sketchy Beginnings that shows working with the main characters of the poem).

I really enjoyed this.. and may have been getting a tad better at using looser pen strokes and wacom tablet sensitivity with Illustrator... however, my trial period was running out.. and the money was just not there for it!

A friend noted that Painter by Corel was a good program for looser pen work, and it might cost less... and that seems like a good place to start the next entry. Part 5 will cover some testing with Painter and, after that, what became my final solution for my budget - freeware!

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On a side note (6/5/11), as I was writing Part 5, it occurred to me, I had tried a test of Illustrator's automatic sketch feature. It's a pretty nifty tool. Below is my sketch followed by the Illustrator output. (Note the settings were used to recreate an image that was as simple and graphic and possible, and the output was tweaked just a bit afterward using the new vector blob brush to smooth edges, and create large areas of black).

This was an important test, because as I was also searching for the right program, I was firming up my ideas for the style of illustration - and this was starting to narrow down a goal - to create a style that was reminiscent of old 1930s cartoon animation.

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A Brief History of The Pumpkin Dream: Part 5 - Monsters from the Id