Halloween postcards

Halloween Postcards

The heyday of sending postcards featuring scenes from holidays – from St. Patrick's Day to Easter to Halloween to Christmas – was from about 1895 to 1915. The cards were sent out in their millions, and today they are a thriving and fun collectible. (Fun fact: People who collect postcards are called deltiologists).

In a day when most people didn't have telephones, these postcards would be hand-delivered or mailed to friends and family in the same town or city, to attend parties or other functions. With the onset of World War I both the paper to print the postcards and the postcards themselves became scarce, as many of them had been printed in Germany.

Because of the heavy metal content in the ink used, the colors of these vintage postcards are still vivid today, (but they must be handled carefully as the ink may still be toxic).

Antique Halloween postcards are a particular favorite among those who collect vintage postcards.

One of the great joys of childhood today is dressing up in fun costumes on Halloween and going Trick-or-Treating, and this has been a custom that children – and adults as well – have enjoyed throughout the Western world since the early 1930s.

But even before Trick or Treating began, the tradition of sending Halloween postcards to family and friends was well established.  These vintage Halloween postcards featured a wide variety of subjects, from children in costume, children playing pranks to Halloween icons such as witches, ghosts and jack-o'-lanterns depicted in their traditional activities.

There were over a hundred postcard publishers at the height of this medium's popularity. Most of them were in the United States, but there were plenty of companies in England and Germany as well, each with its own unique style. (And, indeed, regardless of where the company was located, most of the printing was done by German printers.)

Collectors can assemble their vintage postcard collections based on many different criteria:

Type of card

The typical cards of the period were simply colorful designs on cardstock, sometimes with a poem, motto or phrase prominently placed. But other cards were embossed, printed in gold leaf, or were mechanical - i.e., contained movable tabs that one could pull or push to reveal a scene beneath.

Publishers of cards

With over 100 card companies producing these delightful collectibles, collecting vintage cards by company can be a challenging process.

Perhaps the most well known publisher is John O. Winsch. Despite the fact that he produced cards for only five years - from 1910 to 1915, over 3,000 designs were copyrighted, and his Halloween motifs published in 1911 and 1912 in particular are bestsellers today. Located in Stapleton, New York, his cards were printed in Germany and imported to the U.S.

Another well known company is Tuck and Sons. An English publisher which had studios in London, Paris, Berlin, New York, and Montreal, their artwork, color, and charm. While the designs might take place at any studio, printing usually took place in Germany.

Other publishers include Adolph Selige Publishing Company; John Finkenrath, the International Art Publishing Company, the Gibson Art Company, and Gottschalk, Dreyfuss, and Davis.

Artists

Samuel L Schmucker is typically identified as the best American postcard artist from the Golden Age, and his Halloween postcards are particularly popular. He "combined the design elegance of Art Nouveau style with the rich color palette of the Pre-Raphaelite artists, bringing a unique, artistic vision to a popular art form." He died of a heart-attack at the early age of 42.

Ellen Clapsaddle is an artist whose "rosy-cheeked children" were instantly recognizable. Born in 1865 in New York, she became the most prolific postcard and greeting card artist of her time. Her story is also a tragic one since she was working in Germany at the start of World War I, and was trapped there throughout the war. By the time the war ended her health was broken and she was penniless. Friends brought her back to America where she died alone and destitute.

There's a story on every postcard, and behind every postcard. Sure, some of the designs are pretty straightforward - kids trick or treating, Halloween icons like witches and black cats, but others are not.... for example, many popular cards feature vegetables, or rather "veggie-men", and these weren't pumpkins but cabbages!  Why? Well, one of the "old wive’s tales" on how a girl could know the nature of her future husband involved pulling cabbages at midnight on Halloween and reading the roots!

And of course there's the story behind every postcard, too. The history of the artist, whether it's tragic like Ellen Clapsaddle or uplifting, the history behind the publishing company that brought these cards into the world, they all bring an added appreciation to the vintage and antique postcard collector.