TheNightling
@TheNightling
0
Here are some terms for people considering taking up Halloween collecting.
In recent years, openly loving all things Halloween (seasonal event, not the movie franchise) has become more common place. Halloween is the second most collected Holiday, the number one spot goes to Christmas.
Anyway, here are are the terms for people new to Halloween collecting or those who are just out-of-the-loop when it comes to the language. Anyone is welcome to add to the list.
Haunt – A Haunted House or otherwise spooky attraction such as a horror wax museum, walk-through haunted House, carnival dark ride, amusement park dark ride, Haunted hay ride, or enhanced corn maze.
Haunter – Someone who runs a Haunt professionally, often earning their full year’s income from the haunt or even having the haunt open all year long.
JOL – (pronounced as Joel like the name or as the letters J-O-L). An artificial Jack-o-lantern, particularly the vintage ones made by Germany in the early twentieth century. Interesting to note that though the majority of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Halloween decorations were manufactured in Germany for US sale, Germany, itself, did not celebrate “American style” Halloween until the 1990s after the movies Nightmare before Christmas and Hocus Pocus helped popularize it there.
Choir Boy – A JOL (artificial Jack-o-lantern) with a mouth making an “O” shape.
Paper insert – The vintage artificial Jack-o-lanterns from Germany were usually paper-mache with a paper “insert” for the eyes and inner mouth of the lantern. These usually had colored illustration eyes with pupils, and the inside of the mouth (including teeth). The paper inserts are very scarce now and highly collectable.
Beistle – A brand name of holiday decorations founded in the USA in 1900.
Ben Cooper costumes – Ben Cooper is the company that made the cheap “smock” and plastic face mask (held with string or thin elastic band over the face) Halloween costumes that were inexpensive and popular for children from the 1930s until the 1990s. Reproductions of their costumes are now sold at Spirit Halloween and NECA now makes collectible action figures of children wearing the Ben Cooper Halloween costumes.
Hallowe’en – This is the traditional way of spelling Halloween in Europe and even in the US until the 1940s when the ‘ was phased out of American Halloween merchandise. Both the Halloween and Hallowe’en spellings are considered correct. For American products something with “Hallowe’en” on it is often a “tell” of its age.
NBC – Shorthand way of saying Nightmare before Christmas. Note: Any Nightmare before Christmas merchandise from 1993 or before Disney put their name on the title is much more collectible. So try to find items that say Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas as opposed to the (now) more common “Disney’s Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas.”
Jack Skellington – The King of Halloween from Nightmare before Christmas and Disney’s own mascot for Halloween gaining traction similar to Santa Claus, despite being owned by a corporation and not in the public domain.
CB – Corpse Bride.
NOES – Nightmare on Elm Street.
The Sanderson Sisters – The trio of Witches from the Disney Hocus Pocus franchise. Often a stylized and cartoonish version of them (not resembling their original actresses) appears on merchandise. The stylized depiction of them is relatively new as Hocus Pocus did not have a lot of merchandise for the first twenty or so years of its existence.
Die Cut – Often mistakenly labeled as Die cast, a die cut is a type of flat or semi-flat Halloween decoration. The die cast confusion comes from the fact that some of these are, in fact, metal.
Blowmold / Blow-mold / Blow mold – Those large, hallow, lightweight, lawn decorations. This terminology is often confused with inflatable, or blow up.
Inflatables / Blow up – The inflatable, large, statinary, balloon-like decorations. (Usually not very colelctable though that could change.)
String lights – Any decorative electric lights on an electric cord. These can be the colored orange or red lights or ones shapes like bats, skulls, or Jack-o-lanterns, etc.
OTGW – Over The Garden Wall. Though not originally Halloween specific, this autumn animated TV mini-series has become heavily associated with Halloween because of its use of visuals from vintage Hallowe’en, Thanksgiving, and Christmas post cards. Over the Garden Wall has given names to vintage Hallowe’en postcard characters who originally did not have names such as Enoch (the classic black cat), Adelade (the witch with the red ribbon around her pointed hat), and John Crops (the vegetable man).
Kensington Gore – A punny name for the bright red, edible (usually mint flavored), stage blood, found in Hammer horror movies from the 50s to the 1970s, and Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999). This is not usually sold in stores. The recipe can be found online and it’s usually home made.
Spooky Season – Spooky season traditionally means the season of Halloween however for collectors that does not mean October or even September. That means July 5th until roughly the fourteenth of November. July 5th is the time when party supply stores and stores like Dollar General start to get their Halloween merchandise. Harvest Time for the Halloween collectors. Unfortunately most of this stuff is gone before even the second week of October. Sometimes it’s even gone before September.
Post Halloween – The days right after Halloween when some stores still have Halloween merchandise. This usually ends roughly around November 14th, allowing room for a possible November Friday the 13th for a brief post-Halloween boom.
Off Season – Any time outside of Spooky season and Post Halloween Spooky season. (Most of the year).
Code orange – Code orange is an alert to other Halloween collectors, a sort of “Heads up” meaning that you have spotted Halloween merchandise at a major retailer during The Off Season or just before Spooky Season. This term is usually reserved for large chain stores to tell others that they may find similar items locally at their own version of the store where the merchandise was spotted.
NECA – National Entertainment Collectables Association – NECA makes relatively-inexpensive, but relatively high quality figures and other collectibles connected to fantasy and horror franchises.
Monster Mashup / Monster Mash-up – Anything with multiple classic monsters in it (usually at least three). These are not “versus.” These are things like Hotel Transylvania, Monster Squad, or House of Frankenstein. These used to be called Rallies or Monster Rallies.
Sideshow – A company that makes very high-end 1/6 scale (twelve inch) figures of classic or popular fantasy and horror characters. Now merged with Hot Toys.
Hyde and Eek – Hyde and Eek is the annual Halloween boutique that sets up inside Target annually and usually has a seasonal theme. Sometimes it’s something like monster plants, or a haunted carnival. Every year the merchandise is slightly different and that makes some of their stuff highly collectable.
Spirit Halloween – Spirit Halloween is the “mysterious” Halloween store that sets up shoppe in recently vacated store locations such as recently closed box stores or vacant shops in malls. They start appearing in late July and then leave as quickly as they came within the first week or two of November. Their online store is open all year long.
Jack the Reaper – Mascot of Spirit Halloween.
Curly the Skeleton – Old 90s Mascot of R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps books. Curly used to appear on cardboard cut outs for book stores and other Goosebumps merchandise. He was later replaced by the evil dummy, Slappy, as the mascot for the Goosebumps horror anthology books. Curly merchandise is more collectible than Slappy as he was the first Goosebumps mascot character. And he did not have his own book.
Halloween City – A Halloween store similar to Spirit Halloween but their prices tend to be a bit higher and their quality not quite as good as Spirit Halloween.
Halloween Radio / Halloween Radio dot net – The biggest year round online Halloween radio station. Their slogan originally was “Every Halloween we make you scream!” (Yes, I know where I'm posting this. :-P)
In recent years, openly loving all things Halloween (seasonal event, not the movie franchise) has become more common place. Halloween is the second most collected Holiday, the number one spot goes to Christmas.
Anyway, here are are the terms for people new to Halloween collecting or those who are just out-of-the-loop when it comes to the language. Anyone is welcome to add to the list.
Haunt – A Haunted House or otherwise spooky attraction such as a horror wax museum, walk-through haunted House, carnival dark ride, amusement park dark ride, Haunted hay ride, or enhanced corn maze.
Haunter – Someone who runs a Haunt professionally, often earning their full year’s income from the haunt or even having the haunt open all year long.
JOL – (pronounced as Joel like the name or as the letters J-O-L). An artificial Jack-o-lantern, particularly the vintage ones made by Germany in the early twentieth century. Interesting to note that though the majority of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Halloween decorations were manufactured in Germany for US sale, Germany, itself, did not celebrate “American style” Halloween until the 1990s after the movies Nightmare before Christmas and Hocus Pocus helped popularize it there.
Choir Boy – A JOL (artificial Jack-o-lantern) with a mouth making an “O” shape.
Paper insert – The vintage artificial Jack-o-lanterns from Germany were usually paper-mache with a paper “insert” for the eyes and inner mouth of the lantern. These usually had colored illustration eyes with pupils, and the inside of the mouth (including teeth). The paper inserts are very scarce now and highly collectable.
Beistle – A brand name of holiday decorations founded in the USA in 1900.
Ben Cooper costumes – Ben Cooper is the company that made the cheap “smock” and plastic face mask (held with string or thin elastic band over the face) Halloween costumes that were inexpensive and popular for children from the 1930s until the 1990s. Reproductions of their costumes are now sold at Spirit Halloween and NECA now makes collectible action figures of children wearing the Ben Cooper Halloween costumes.
Hallowe’en – This is the traditional way of spelling Halloween in Europe and even in the US until the 1940s when the ‘ was phased out of American Halloween merchandise. Both the Halloween and Hallowe’en spellings are considered correct. For American products something with “Hallowe’en” on it is often a “tell” of its age.
NBC – Shorthand way of saying Nightmare before Christmas. Note: Any Nightmare before Christmas merchandise from 1993 or before Disney put their name on the title is much more collectible. So try to find items that say Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas as opposed to the (now) more common “Disney’s Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas.”
Jack Skellington – The King of Halloween from Nightmare before Christmas and Disney’s own mascot for Halloween gaining traction similar to Santa Claus, despite being owned by a corporation and not in the public domain.
CB – Corpse Bride.
NOES – Nightmare on Elm Street.
The Sanderson Sisters – The trio of Witches from the Disney Hocus Pocus franchise. Often a stylized and cartoonish version of them (not resembling their original actresses) appears on merchandise. The stylized depiction of them is relatively new as Hocus Pocus did not have a lot of merchandise for the first twenty or so years of its existence.
Die Cut – Often mistakenly labeled as Die cast, a die cut is a type of flat or semi-flat Halloween decoration. The die cast confusion comes from the fact that some of these are, in fact, metal.
Blowmold / Blow-mold / Blow mold – Those large, hallow, lightweight, lawn decorations. This terminology is often confused with inflatable, or blow up.
Inflatables / Blow up – The inflatable, large, statinary, balloon-like decorations. (Usually not very colelctable though that could change.)
String lights – Any decorative electric lights on an electric cord. These can be the colored orange or red lights or ones shapes like bats, skulls, or Jack-o-lanterns, etc.
OTGW – Over The Garden Wall. Though not originally Halloween specific, this autumn animated TV mini-series has become heavily associated with Halloween because of its use of visuals from vintage Hallowe’en, Thanksgiving, and Christmas post cards. Over the Garden Wall has given names to vintage Hallowe’en postcard characters who originally did not have names such as Enoch (the classic black cat), Adelade (the witch with the red ribbon around her pointed hat), and John Crops (the vegetable man).
Kensington Gore – A punny name for the bright red, edible (usually mint flavored), stage blood, found in Hammer horror movies from the 50s to the 1970s, and Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999). This is not usually sold in stores. The recipe can be found online and it’s usually home made.
Spooky Season – Spooky season traditionally means the season of Halloween however for collectors that does not mean October or even September. That means July 5th until roughly the fourteenth of November. July 5th is the time when party supply stores and stores like Dollar General start to get their Halloween merchandise. Harvest Time for the Halloween collectors. Unfortunately most of this stuff is gone before even the second week of October. Sometimes it’s even gone before September.
Post Halloween – The days right after Halloween when some stores still have Halloween merchandise. This usually ends roughly around November 14th, allowing room for a possible November Friday the 13th for a brief post-Halloween boom.
Off Season – Any time outside of Spooky season and Post Halloween Spooky season. (Most of the year).
Code orange – Code orange is an alert to other Halloween collectors, a sort of “Heads up” meaning that you have spotted Halloween merchandise at a major retailer during The Off Season or just before Spooky Season. This term is usually reserved for large chain stores to tell others that they may find similar items locally at their own version of the store where the merchandise was spotted.
NECA – National Entertainment Collectables Association – NECA makes relatively-inexpensive, but relatively high quality figures and other collectibles connected to fantasy and horror franchises.
Monster Mashup / Monster Mash-up – Anything with multiple classic monsters in it (usually at least three). These are not “versus.” These are things like Hotel Transylvania, Monster Squad, or House of Frankenstein. These used to be called Rallies or Monster Rallies.
Sideshow – A company that makes very high-end 1/6 scale (twelve inch) figures of classic or popular fantasy and horror characters. Now merged with Hot Toys.
Hyde and Eek – Hyde and Eek is the annual Halloween boutique that sets up inside Target annually and usually has a seasonal theme. Sometimes it’s something like monster plants, or a haunted carnival. Every year the merchandise is slightly different and that makes some of their stuff highly collectable.
Spirit Halloween – Spirit Halloween is the “mysterious” Halloween store that sets up shoppe in recently vacated store locations such as recently closed box stores or vacant shops in malls. They start appearing in late July and then leave as quickly as they came within the first week or two of November. Their online store is open all year long.
Jack the Reaper – Mascot of Spirit Halloween.
Curly the Skeleton – Old 90s Mascot of R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps books. Curly used to appear on cardboard cut outs for book stores and other Goosebumps merchandise. He was later replaced by the evil dummy, Slappy, as the mascot for the Goosebumps horror anthology books. Curly merchandise is more collectible than Slappy as he was the first Goosebumps mascot character. And he did not have his own book.
Halloween City – A Halloween store similar to Spirit Halloween but their prices tend to be a bit higher and their quality not quite as good as Spirit Halloween.
Halloween Radio / Halloween Radio dot net – The biggest year round online Halloween radio station. Their slogan originally was “Every Halloween we make you scream!” (Yes, I know where I'm posting this. :-P)
