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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
