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Beistle Halloween Decorations - Vintage Halloween Decorations From the Beistle Company

Halloween decorations made by The Beistle Company are some of the most popular collectibles among fans of vintage holiday decorations. Specializing in paper party supplies such as die-cuts, centerpieces and paper plates and cups, The Beistle Company has been manufacturing Halloween novelty décor and supplies since the beginning of the 20th century. Founded in Pennsylvania by Martin Beistle, The Beistle Company is still in business today and is one of the largest manufacturers of Halloween goods in the US. But for collectors, it isn't Beistle's new products that cause the most interest. It's their highly sought after vintage Halloween decorations that have become highly collectible.

Some of the vintage Beistle decorations you should be on the look-out for if you are seeking to start or add to your collection are Halloween die-cuts, lanterns and other paper products for the table. Many of the Beistle decorations feature honeycomb tissue paper so you can find items like Jack O'Lanterns with arms and legs that bounce, but due to the fragile nature of the honeycomb tissue you will want to inspect any purchases carefully and also make sure you carefully store any paper products that you buy when they aren't in use.

One thing to be aware of if you looking for Beistle Halloween decorations to add to your collection is the fact that some of their most popular vintage designs have been reproduced recently so you should be wary of unscrupulous sellers who are claiming the repro items as the original vintage products. All of the reproductions are marked with the year of production and the paper they are made out of is heavier than the paper Beistle used in the 1930s and 40s so if you are shopping in person it will be easy to spot the difference. But if, like most collectors, you are putting together your Halloween collection with online purchases and Ebay auctions, the best advice is to stick to well-known and reputable dealers who have a reputation to maintain and lots of positive feedback on their auctions.

Beistle has used various trademarks over the years and there are several to keep an eye out for when you are determining authenticity. Depending on what kind of product you are looking at, the trademarks will either be stamped, printed, labeled or embossed. The most common trademarks include: "H.E. Luhrs"; "The Beistle Company" printed signature, "Bee-Line" which may or may not include an image of a bee in flight; and the Beistle Diamond Trademark. On their tissue products you may find the "Art Tissue Westminster Bells" trademark.

Some of the most interesting of the vintage Beistle Halloween decorations available were made between the years 1900 and the early 1950s. Due to the fact that Halloween was much more of an adult oriented holiday than it is today, you'll often find that early decorations had more of a spooky aspect than the stuff made for children's Halloween parties and trick or treat outings today. So as you build your collection, it may make the most sense to stick to products manufactured in the early half of the century in order to maintain a consistent feel to your Halloween collection.

About the Author

You can find many great examples of
vintage Beistle Halloween decorations
, such as the wonderful
vintage Halloween die-cuts
made by Beistle. And don't forget
vintage Christmas lights
.

I plan of shooting art repro photos of large flat and 3D artworks. I'm using a D90. What settings are best?

should I lower saturation and raise sharpness? I will be using a fixed 35mm lens, for optimal sharpness. I plan on possibly making reproduction posters of the art. Will 12mp at 100 iso, w raw large image files be enough for fairly large posters? Should I set the camera to matrix metering and then use the automatic bracketing feature? Please offer any suggestions that u may have. Thanks in advance.

You are concentrating too much on camera settings and not on set up. You need to insure as best as you can that the artwork is as level and in the same plane as the camera. I am assuming you are going to be mounting the camera on a tripod, right? Use level indicators to place the camera at an exact 90 degrees to the ground. Also be sure the camera is pointed straight. All this is to try to prevent distortion which you WILL have in the photos if the camera / art work are not set up properly.

More ideal is to use a copy stand in which the art lays flat and the camera is precisely positioned over the work shooting downward.

Also, lighting is important. I hope you are not planning on using a flash are you? You need soft, diffused light from both sides to light the art and not cast shadows. Ideally, you should use a light meter to determine exposure. Bracketing should not be necessary. If you don't have a light meter, take a test shot and read your histogram. Adjust shutter speed / aperture as needed to get a proper exposure.

Use a SMALL aperture, (large number), especially on the 3D work. You want a good depth of field. I would try to use f16.

Yes, for best quality use a low ISO number. You are going to have shutter speeds that are VERY slow, so as said, you MUST have the camera properly mounted, NO hand holding.

Use a remote cable release to trip the shutter or use the self timer, or you likely will have blur due to pressing the shutter release.

Use mirror lock up to prevent mirror slap from creating blur. Look in your manual to see how to set mirror lock up.

The color on reproduced art work needs to be ACCURATE. I would definitely use RAW, but that is not good enough. If a piece has a splash of purple, and your photo shows it as red, someone is not going to be happy. You need to shoot a grey card when under your lighting. You then calibrate color against the grey card in the RAW processor. This gives you perfect color that matches the art work.

I have done this type of work many, many times. A local college here hires me every year to photograph students boards that they create for their interior decorating class. They need photos of these large boards to place in their portfolios.

I frankly suggest you take the suggestions I mentioned and do LOTS of practicing before committing to shooting the art work. It is NOT as easy to do it right as you may be thinking.

steve

S'Xpress - Music Lover V-15454 1989

Tags: art, design, photography, printing, repro art deco, repro art deco furniture, repro art deco lighting, repro arts, repro artwork, shopping

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at 6:23 pm and is filed under paintings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.