[BlueFrog]

One of my other hobbies - shocking as it may be, I do have interests outside of Halloween - is collecting antique prints with subjects of interest to me, primarily "scary" critters, poisonous plants, and deadly mushrooms. (No really, there is NO connection to Halloween at all ) Most are from the 19thC but some go as far back as the 16th.

For fun, I convinced my cranky new-to-me scanner to produce image files of a few to distribute for free to haunters looking for materials to paste into spellbooks, werewolf hunting journals, and the like. If people are happy with the quality and there's enough interest, I'd be happy to scan some more. All I ask is that you not sell the image files themselves, or plain printouts of them. In other words, print out, paste into spellbook or picture frame you've made/customized, and sell the resulting prop = OK. Offering the image files as paid downloads from your Etsy store = not OK.

These were scanned at the machine's highest resolution, which sadly is only 600 dpi. Some of the plates were printed crooked, so there's nothing I can do to correct those. Let me know what you think, especially whether these would be sufficiently useful for me to bargain with the cranky scanner to scan additional documents after the Never Ending House Move is sorta complete. By that time, with luck, I will have also located the handy notebook with printsouts that contain the full publication data.

http://s1000.photobucket.com/user/BlueFrogCreations/library/Halloween Scans?sort=3&page=1

No witches (but lots of witches' herbs), no anthropomorphic werewolves (but how freaky looking are those wolves), no zombies. Other prints I know I do have somewhere include:

• Multiple Atropa belladonna (=deadly nightshare) and Aconitum nepellus (=wolfsbane/monkshood)
• Almost any of the other "-banes"
• Two or three additional mandrakes (sadly, the best of them is probably unscannable)
• Opium poppy
• One or two more Death's Head moths
• Many more mushrooms, most of them deadly (but not as flashy-pretty as the fly agaric already scanned)
• Modern reprint of old, old plague doctor image
• One or two more bats
• Poison ivy (early 20thC if I recall correctly)
• some random insects

 

[Dulcet Jones]

You've got some interesting pictures there, didn't have time to go through them all but the "Creepshow" page has some very steampunk looking devices.

 

[printersdevil]

Bluefrog, I think these are great. I would love to make an album of the herbs/plants for a witch's go to reference book. I also agree with Dulcet Jones, the Creepshow one is interesting. I would think these would be good in the Insane Asylum themes, too. I am headed out to Lady Sherry's MNT today, but I will get back to this later tomorrow for some viewing pleasure.

I also found some cool mental institute prints recently on Pinterest. I think I put them in a private album because I was looking for something else. I will get them changed over so others can see. If I remember correctly one was of someone having a lobotomy and maybe electro shock treatment. Would be good to hang up or use in this theme or maybe a Mad Scientist lab.

Thanks for sharing with us.

 

[Saki.Girl]

thanks bull frog these are great i plan to make a book of herbs so these will be cool

 

[BlueFrog]

Bluefrog, I think these are great. I would love to make an album of the herbs/plants for a witch's go to reference book. I also agree with Dulcet Jones, the Creepshow one is interesting. I would think these would be good in the Insane Asylum themes, too.

Oh! I wasn't even thinking about people looking at the other albums - or being interested in pictures of the "Creepshow" items. Those particular instruments happen to be hanging out in a reasonably accessible place, and thus could be photographed on something creepier than a floral bedspread if anyone would like me to

 

[22606]

Those particular instruments happen to be hanging out in a reasonably accessible place, and thus could be photographed on something creepier than a floral bedspread if anyone would like me to

What could be more terrifying?

Those prints are marvelous, BlueFrog. If anyone else is into the show Grimm, they could be ideal for a book similar to the one that Nick has in the trailer showing illustrations of the various Wesen.

 

[BlueFrog]

Garthgoyle, I like that idea so well I just might make my own Grimm-style book. With dozens of prints left to scan, I could probably assemble something pretty impressive. And Saki.Girl and printersdevil, I have tons of botanicals for you, once I find the appropriate album.

 

[im the goddess]

Thank you bluefrog. I can;t wait to take a more detailed look at these.

 

[Blarghity]

For reference sake, archive.org has a number of pre-WW1 books for identifying plants and animals. You'll have to hunt hard for them, though. I had to kill three Irishmen and steal their luck just to have the chance of stumbling across the few I found years ago. One was a book on common weeds, the other was on birdwatching.