Halloween

The Devil is in the Details

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Devil card

Pam’s Pictorama Post: Halloween happiness continues on Pictorama! This is a rare case of a card that I have absolutely no memory of having purchased. I have owned it for a fair amount of time, and suspect someone must have given it to me. Halloween cards are frequently too expensive to purchase without real commitment.

This card was sent from Madge Bush of Branchport, NY, tardy for Halloween, on November 5 at 5 PM, 1909. Written in a virtually unreadable child’s hand is the following: Hellogertrude wasyouinto mischief halloween Howdoyoulike yourteacher? It is address in the same hand: Gertrude Bush Westfield PA R.F.D. #2. An adult with beautiful penmanship has added with flourishes: Gertrude Lulu Bush and under the child’s writing her name, Madge Bush. In addition, and somewhat inexplicably, Bush, G.B.x M.B. L.B. and again, Madge Bush.

I think this card is hotsy-totsy! Although it is missing the ever-desirable black cats, it is a worthy, goofy image. For some reason the Devil has entered into a party favor tug-of-war with Mr. Pumpkin Head. (I confess, Pumpkin Headed figures have always vaguely terrified me.) The Devil has put down his pitchfork in order to really put his back into it. We will assume that maybe Mr. Pumpkin Head was carrying those two oozy looking small pumpkins – a strange potential form of Pumpkin cannibalism he was about to commit?

I have long waited to be invited to a party where favors like this party cracker were given out – what on earth great thing could have been inside? Perhaps I will never know, but these guys consider it worth fighting for. Another thing that appeals to me about this card is the way the candle gives everything a scale – the Devil and Pumpkin Head are party cracker/candle size!

Let’s all get out there and mail a few Halloween cards – and don’t forget the party crackers in my trick or treat bag please.

Two of a Kind

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: As we continue on with our Halloween theme, I present two splendid kitties from my collection. The first of these cats was among my very first purchases in the world of black cat toy collecting, and it is still among my very favorites. He, along with another excellent, much earlier cat (a future post) were scored in an antique store in Red Bank, New Jersey – near my ancestral home, while on a weekend junket to visit my parents. The second was purchased on eBay. That seller told me that it had been a prize his or her grandmother had won on a push pin board game in a store, and that it was from the 1930’s, which seems about right. This seemingly appropriate example of one of these prize boards is below, grabbed off of the internet.

punch board

There was great excitement from Blackie and Cookie when I took these cats down to be photographed! The arched back, tail and ears is enough for them to read angry feline and react in-kind. In addition, these cats in particular, still carry the irresistible smell of attic and mysterious old things. The combination really wound these guys up this morning.

Both toys are in pretty superb condition – one maintains his bow – and sport magnificent fluffy tails, and virtually no bald spots on their plushy fur. The eBay one has a few condition issues – he does not really stand on his own any longer and his tail lists permanently to one side. Pretty good for a couple of elderly fellows though. They are the cheerful guardians of my cat shelf. I admit, I couldn’t pass one up and would contentedly buy additional ones if I found them. I mean, who wouldn’t?

black cat w/ bowebay cat

Clowning Around

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  I have owned this jolly photo for a long time and it sits on a shelf in our living room. It is unused and undated and sort of just slips in under the wire for a Halloween-theme month post. I associate this genre of costume with the teens or twenties, and the extraordinary enthusiasm for dressing up that never seems to fully resume after the thirties – when clearly people were too poor and things too somber for such frivolity. I have a fascination for this kind of long-gone dress up and it is one of the things I regret I missed being born into the age that I was.

As I examine this card I wonder anew, what is the aviator doing among the matching clowns? I admire his individuality, and can’t help but wonder if there is a story there. (Fly these clowns to the moon, right away!) The clown woman in the upper left corner is the only one who didn’t even manage a semblance of a smile; she appears pensive. I can’t tell if the bower of roses is real (I think it is) or fake, and there is what seems to be confetti on their costumes and on the ground below them. A fair perhaps? Halloween? Whatever it was, looks like a good time was had by all and I wish I could have been there!

Lucky Black Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Is this YOUR Lucky Day? Pictorama is featuring Halloween, and black cats in particular, throughout the month of October. Our first installment is this great Lucky Black Cat Curio Catalog of novelties for sale. (Items listed here are sold as Curios Only.)

I purchased this more years ago than I can remember off-hand, attracted by the great graphic on the front. I believe I came across it at a flea market. Following in the great tradition of the Johnson and Smith catalogues, this advertises an array of supernatural and superstitious must-haves. I can’t really show it here, but this was printed on one very long piece of paper, red and black throughout, and folded so it can be read as a booklet. Kim has scanned one spread for me, shown here.

Lucky Black Cat interior 1    Lucky Black Cat interior 3      Lucky Black Cat interior 2

I am especially amazed and horrified by the ad for Black Cat Ashes. (Blackie, don’t read this!) Evidently this ancient practice enabled you to make successful number combinations. And while they remind you that they make no preternatural or supernatural claims or magical representations they do however remind you that it was prepared according to an ancient formula. Draw what conclusions you will.

Listed on the back panel is more than a hundred Other Curios that can be ordered. Ranging in price from 25 cents to a dollar the list includes some of the following highlights: Devil Oil, War Water (followed by Peace Water), Devil’s Shoe Strings (?), Black Cat Holy Water, Black Cat Wishing Bone (ouch!) and Lucky Floor Wash. Buying it was my lucky day.

Mickey Mask

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Scan(5) copy 2

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Recently I was bidding on a rather fascinating Mickey Mouse mask from the thirties – an awkward thing, Kim seemed unmoved by it, but I found it very interesting. It doesn’t matter because it zoomed out of a price range that I could possibly justify paying – after all, it wasn’t even a cat. Still, almost by way of consolation, this photo appeared for sale on eBay – the man wearing the very type of mask I was bidding on.

While this can’t really compete with my past Mickey photo post Mickey Marches In it is still a pretty hot photo of the Mickey and Minnie dress up craze of the thirties. Halloween dressing up by adults seems, in general, to have been taken to a much higher level in the first part of the 20th century. That’s a pretty hot hula girl outfit behind the guy with the funny nose and the “S” or “5” on his pouch. And is that Little Miss Muffet and her Tuffet behind Minnie? I thought it was a turtle at first, but she seems very pleased with it either way. There’s a clown – there always is in these photos – and someone in a sort of raja outfit. Still, Mickey and Minnie are front and center and it has probably helped keep this photo bobbing around all these years instead of lost in an album somewhere.

If you look carefully, you will see that Mickey and Minnie seems to have a little wooden man on a wire like a leash. What on earth is that? And why are Mickey and Minnie taking him out and about? Their pet human perhaps – fitting for anthropromorphic mice I guess, not that I keep a mouse on a leash. This complements the dark side of this photo – after all, those masks are a bit terrifying.

Beeeep!

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: I bought this earlier this week on eBay. I must say, I don’t exactly know what I was thinking, but no one was bidding on it and it was very original. Now that I have it I love it! It makes a loud beep that annoys the cats – as shown with Cookie below, which is always entertaining. I particularly like the sort of hand painted, not-quite-Felix on it.

The wood inside is interesting and have shown you so you can get a sense of it. This was a time when a cheap toy was really made of something! I assume it has seen some high old times – halloween parties, maybe the occasional New Year’s celebration. I intend to keep it handy for any celebration that comes along.

Happy Halloween, 1917

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Newscan #5Nuscan #4 Nuscan #3)

Pam’ Pictorama Photo Post: I have opined on the loss of a pleasure that is largely specific to flea markets – that is the happy surprise; finding the thing you never knew existed. Never knew you needed. It is possible, to some degree, to imitate this experience on eBay and one way I do that is to just leaf through the listings for various old photographs. It isn’t quite the same as sifting through a box of old photos, but sometimes it does yield the extraordinary, as it did in this case. The photos above were from an album and although they are not marked as such I do remember that it was indicated that they were from Brooklyn.  They were sold separately over a period of time and so getting all three was a bit painstaking, but worthwhile I think.

The one marked Chemistry Squad 1917 is postcard size, but is a regular photo printed on photo paper, not heavier stock. The baby buggy has a sign that reads, He won’t be happy till he gets it. (I pause for a moment to consider that baby strollers, the baby carriage or buggy of today, couldn’t possibly hold a costumed adult posing as a baby – how times change!) The other two photos are smaller and I have framed them together. Robinson-Vernet is smaller, only about 2 3/4″ x 3.5″ and the unmarked one larger at 2 3/4″ x 4″. This one, when blown up large, reveals bits of floats and banners in the background (Machine Construction and the beginning of a date on the banner) so we will assume it is a parade.

Nothing on the back of any, only the mark from where they were removed from an album.  Devil man, very debonaire, is the one that ties the three together photos together, appearing in each. His album we will assume? Although mysterious #7 man appears in the horizontal one (next to Devil man if you look carefully) as well as the one where they pose together by the fence.

These ribald fellows (yes, I think all fellows, despite the appearances in drag) certainly look like they knew how to kick up their heels! Halloween 1917, it was a hot day in the city that year.

A Photo Only I Could Love?

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  More Pre-Halloween seasonal fun! I fell hard for this card, but it was one if those rare occasions when Kim just couldn’t see it. Don’t get me wrong – he would never actively discourage me from purchasing a photo I was crazy about, but sometimes when he seems truly mystified it does take the wind out of my sails. There’s nothing about marriage which makes me think you should like all the same stuff – more interesting if you don’t really and Kim readily agrees. And I know that the kindest thing he can say about some of the most ratty of my toy purchases is that this one or that one look like a stuffed demon, or worse yet, a roll of the eyes and a (sad) shake of the head – but somehow I expect our esthetic sensibility for images such as photos to be more aligned. But on the other hand, how can my husband fail to see the bizarre greatness of a card of someone in a homemade Felix costume, with a mask made out of a bag and an advertising sign that says, Felix left off walking when he bought a bike from Curry’s? Or am I really just crazy? I mean, it was The Prize Winner at Boston. Really Kim!

Another time this happened was an attempt to purchase these photos of co-eds donning Felix-y costumes. I was seriously jazzed when I saw them and Kim…wasn’t. I was so befuddled I put it out to Facebook for a vote. The buys had it (by a good margin, but not unanimous) but so shaken was my confidence that I underbid and ultimately lost it. (Below is the scan pulled off of Facebook from eBay.)

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There are those occasions when Kim seems unimpressed until the photo enters the apartment. There are numerous examples of this, but the most recent is the photo featured in my post Cat Hat, sadly this was not one of those times.

For me, the costume, complete with broken cat tail and white socks for feet (those folks at Curry’s were nothing if not resourceful), posed on an early British version of Astroturf just tickles me silly. I hope it does as much for you, my reader.

Cat Costume – Photo Album Pages Continue

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Pam Photo Album Page Post:  These were an anniversary gift, back in ’12 I think.  Ain’t I the lucky girl?  And weren’t these folks having a high old time?

A short post since these speak for themselves, I think.  This is one of a few groups I will ultimately share of catty costumes from more or less the same period.  (Although my all time favorite is a series of Devils in Brooklyn…and I have one strange story about buying photos that appear to be from the same session from different sellers in different states at different times.)  I like to keep photos of a group together when possible, even if I don’t display all of them.  I am sad that the one has damage – in some ways it is the best one.

Not much else to say except, Halloween sure isn’t as cool as it used to be!