Items from Jeni Scherer’s Halloween collection, including a vintage Star Wars costume and antique decorations.
Seasonal Influences
Great Ghosts
Whether antique or handcrafted, Halloween memorabilia is a hot collectible


A hand-painted pumpkin decoration.


Halloween decorations find a seat on a cart bought from Hap Moore Antiques in York, Maine.


They can also be found among stacks of fabric in Jeni’s rug-hooking room.


In the Scherers’ Cape Neddick home, Halloween decorations stay up most of the fall. Jeni made the colorful hooked rug; she has won awards for her hooked rugs, but now she enjoys making them for friends and family.


Vintage noisemakers.


An owl ornament from Germany, where many Halloween collectibles were made before World War II.

Jeni Scherer collected Halloween memorabilia for more than 40 years, but a decade ago, she decided to get rid of it all. She just married her husband, Bob, and since both are antiques collectors who had been previously married to “non-collectors,” she was making an effort to pare down so they could combine their belongings and move from New Jersey to Cape Neddick, Maine, without feeling overwhelmed.

That didn’t last long. After the couple moved to Maine, she started rebuilding her collection right away.

“Then I was sorry,” says Jeni. “So I started collecting all over again, and it just grew. Now I’m up to two Halloween trees.”

Today, her rebuilt collection includes both crafts, such as a hand-painted pumpkin and playful rugs she hooks herself, and highly desirable antiques, including German die cuts, noisemakers, and ornaments, which hang from the black branches of the two Halloween trees.

As an antiques dealer—she and Bob are displayed in four shops in New Jersey and now rent space at the Blacksmith Antiques Mall in Ogunquit—Jeni is always on the lookout for new finds at antiques shows, crafts fairs, and even flea markets. In the past few years, she’s noticed that more and more people have joined her in searching for Halloween memorabilia, which has recently become a popular trend for collecting, made even more so by the scarcity of items.

“Halloween is hot,” says Jeni, explaining that because children were the primary handlers of items, which were mostly made of flimsy materials such as paper mache, cardboard, and thin plastic, and parents did not think of Halloween decorations as something to preserve, there isn’t much to go around. “Kids wear costumes and wear them out so there just isn’t much of it,” she says.

Mary Dacquino, of Seasons at Calmore, an antiques, furnishings, and gift shop in Dunstable, Mass., says she has also noticed a growing popularity in Halloween collecting and doesn’t expect that interest will die down any time soon.

“It’s second only to Christmas,” she says, though she points out that unlike Christmas decorations, Halloween decorations were not carefully put away each year. “It’s really turned a corner, and it maintains its value.”

Though Mary says the holiday had its beginnings in Scotland, much of the in-demand antiques were made by highly skilled craftsmen in Germany, before the outbreak of World War II. “They were very good craftsmen … so when Halloween became big in Europe and the states they really cornered the market for Halloween decorations,” she explains.

As a seasonal shop, for fall Calmore sells antique Halloween ephemera, including paper cutouts, postcards, and greeting cards, and new, handcrafted pieces from artists, such as crows and pumpkins crafted from reclaimed tin roofs.

Mary’s advice to collectors is to go for quality. “Condition is very key,” she says. “Buy the best you can afford, and buy the best condition.” But, she adds, if you can’t find antiques, newer items are another good way to start a collection.

“Buy the stuff that’s hand painted from a certain artist,” she advises, explaining that well-made, finely crafted items will only grow in value. “It’s a good collection to invest in.”

Jeni also has advice for new collectors: don’t hesitate if you like it. “If you want it, buy it when you see it. There have been more regrets about not buying than about buying,” she says.
Jeni says her own collecting stems from a deep love of Halloween. She recalls trick-or-treating for four or five hours while growing up in Detroit, and she went all out for her first Halloween as an adult, with somewhat unfortunate results. “I made elaborate candy apples,” she remembers. “I spent hours making them, but how do kids carry them around?” she says, laughing at herself for not realizing that the sticky confections would be a mess to put into a trick-or-treat bag.

Because their house is hidden from the road in a densely wooded area, the Scherers have not had any trick-or-treaters to their Cape Neddick home. “The first couple of years I had candy, which I ate,” says Jeni. But Halloween is still the biggest holiday in their home with decorations going up sometime in September and staying up throughout the fall season; some stay up all year.

“It’s fun,” says Jeni. “It makes me smile when I see it.”