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Halloween Holy Grail?

2K views 19 replies 13 participants last post by  LairMistress 
#1 ·
I'm going to a local swap meet tomorrow morning and I love thrift stores both of these got me thinking...while looking through the Halloween treasures we find at these places what would be the Holy Grail of Halloween that may be found there? Are there any Holy Grails of Halloween that define the holiday?
 
#4 ·
First, yes, it will vary wildly from person to person. However, for a significant number, finding the real version of an item we normally have to build or buy as a plastic prop would work. For example, if you found a real;

iron cauldron, pot-bellied with ring handles, large enough to hold 10 to 20 gallons,
a real casket or (even better) a real wooden coffin, six-sided, the 'toe-pincher' style,
a vintage hearse, either a mid-to-late 50's era Cadillac or earlier, all the way back to horse-drawn,
or a working parlor-sized pipe organ or harpsichord.
 
#7 ·
Not sure if it was a Holy Grail or not, but definitely something I wasn't expecting:

My mom and I went antiquing a few days ago. We weren't planning on buying anything, just to look around. Yet I found a whole set of 1997 Universal Monster collectible stamps, in perfect condition, put in little keepsake boxes. I ended up buying a few (and will probably buy the rest at a later date, if they're still there). Again, I wasn't expecting it, but was super happy when I saw them!
 
#8 ·
A few years ago those old Aurora Plastic monster model kits were re-issued by Polar Lights,along with the Psycho House and the Addams Family mansion.
I think many of them are still available in model stores.
My real Coffin was given to me late one night ,it came delivered from the back of an old pick-up truck.
It had been left behind in a JC Haunt 50 miles from me in the abandoned farm house for a few years.
Is it "second-Hand" in the terms of it's actual intended usage? I don't know?
A 1957 Cadillac hearse was also given to me,costing the towing fee of $120. It would still be here if one certain person had not moved into this small town and become a Crusader about unlicensed cars occupying space here . (As if this was really a problem here?) Most of the farm trucks driven and parking in town look much worse than most of the cars and trucks parked in someone's backyard.
I paid $10 for a working 1963 Hammond organ. i had a premonition that once I got it home from 4 blocks away (uphill all the way on a 2-wheeled cart) that it would never "Play" again, i was right.
We have a steep slope behind this house that was once the town's landfill. My Wife found a steel-porcelain sign 7 feet long buried there for "Gargoyle Gasoline'(Made by Mobilgas) the steel price disc behind the sign can be rotated to show various prices like 19cents-22cents through a nice round hole in the sign.
also with that sign was a Model "T" steering wheel and a tire /wheel from maybe 1913 that says "OLDFIELD" on it's sidewall,Barney Oldfield,"Fastest Man alive" on 1910. He drove his Blizen-Benz race car 131MPH on the Daytona Beach. The engine had 1,312 cubic inches (Yes, I have that number correct) and it was a 4 cylinder.
Whenever I dig a hole here I find car parts, if I dig deeper, I find wagon parts.
This was the town's Oldsmobile dealership in the 1930's-40s.
 
#14 ·
Things that most people really don't want, LOL. Honestly, I want to find a good-working condition bubble fogger. I refuse to pay $50-70 on one from Spirit, when the reviews are so bad. Surely someone local has one for sale that they don't want anymore. I am still kicking myself for not buying one on clearance from Target the last time that they carried them!

I would also love to replace my Paper Magic Group laughing (half) skull with the rolling eyes (just a face, not a whole head). I have mine in semi-working condition, but it's nowhere near perfect.

The little plastic thunder and lightning machines that you can plug lamps into. Kicking myself over that too, they're not being made anymore.

A real wicker wheelchair

A working cabinet style Victrola with horn, and a record to play on it (I may even buy the little plastic one that At Home has...if local stores carry it, too)
 
#15 ·
I have been very lucky to find some of my holy grails, which are usually old collectible things like Imagineering Vampire Blood and fangs, Beistle cardboard decorations, things like that. Among the things I would like to find from the 70's are old packaging for orange Halloween candles--I used to see candles like these in colorful boxes with graphics of JOLs and haystacks, etc. I like that old imagery.
 
#17 ·
Lairnistress, I paid the $70 for a bubble fogger a few years ago and have loved it and.... it's a big hit with everyone young and old.

tomanderson, "Among the things I would like to find from the 70's are old packaging for orange Halloween candles--I used to see candles like these in colorful boxes with graphics of JOLs and haystacks, etc. I like that old imagery." not sure what you're talking about here. I also love Beistle and have found quite a few.

UnOrthodOx, I'll keep an eye out for you.
 
#18 ·
Lairmisstress!
I found the top of the old Victrola (the hardest part to build! ) So I built the rest of it.
When i was 10 yrs.old my Dad bought adjacent properties that had two very old junky houses, my Victrola /play house came from one of those houses. I could fit inside of it and easily hide there for a long time. I wasn't a big kid.
A friend of mine had an old Victrola in his house, it had not worked for many years,then one night it began playing! Spooky!
I have an old piece of sheet music called" Vampire Waltz",it has a drawing of a young woman on the cover.. "Vampire?"
28 years ago there was a Thursday night junk auction 10 miles from here. I would spent $10-$20 and bring home a large truckload of really old stuff and never spend more than $20.
That was where i found my antique wood stove , with the fancy casting on the front for my first room (No fire used in it) It was so heavy that I couldn't get it up into the truck, so I bought a very heavy, thick, antique door at the auction for 25 cents and used the door for a ramp to load the wood stove.
Sometimes I "Miss" that auction, but then my house is still full of that stuff,but then the house was built in 1865. (So most of this "Stuff" from the junk auction is "New!" )
Yes, the "Pickers" have been here a few times for a house tour since they are only 45 miles down the road from here. They weren't interested in any of this stuff I have but some people see the old chairs and tell me how "Valuable" they might be!
I tell them the truth:"I bought these items at an auction, right in front of 4 to 10 antique dealers and none of them out-bid me at $1.25 for the old chair,so how "priceless" can it be?
I had some really nice old chairs. they didn't hold up too well when large people would coming running into the room at the beginning of the house tour, and more than one of them would land into the old chair at the same time! "Crack!!"
I was carefully screwing the chairs back together for the third time when i decided to "Retire" them to a high shelf looking down upon the scene of their destruction,where they have remained now for maybe 20 years.
I thought of duplicating those chairs out of steel -stock....Surprise! Chair-no-break !
Maybe.. someday?
 
#19 ·
Stringy Jack, that's good to know! Spirit has almost all bad reviews for them, so I was being cautious.

Jim, I saw a Victrola for sale at a thrift shop awhile back, but didn't really have a use for it then. I've decided to add a walk through area to my scene, that will be a haunted parlor.

I'm not positive that I'll do it this year, but it's definitely on next year's list, if not this year.
 
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