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These holiday treasures can be found for a very merry price!
by Diane C. Arkins
 f you’ve ever caught the collecting bug at the holidays, you know that one look at a display case of beautiful (but oh-so-expensive!) blown-glass tree ornaments or papier-mâché Santas can zap the “merry” right out of a Christmas budget. Fortunately for cost-conscious collectors, vintage holiday goodies abound: Smart buyers will want to seek out the treasures below. They’re fun, festive and, so far, relatively easy and inexpensive to acquire.
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 VINTAGE BRIDGE TALLIES ($1 to $15): Through the decades, bridge players have kept score using decorative cards made by manufacturers like Buzza, Gibson, Clark, Rust Craft and Hallmark. Though it’s easy to fall in love with silk-tasseled die-cut
figures of pretty ladies in colorful c. 1930s Art Deco splendor, bargain hunters can find designs galore boasting 1940s-style sweetness or 1960s-style Modernism.
(an artistic c. 1930s bridge tally with matching place card by Gibson.)
OLD-FASHIONED PARTY GUIDES ($5 to $25): Whether you prefer early-1900s charm or 1960s-style excitement, vintage party guides and recipe booklets will bring a touch of nostalgia to your Yuletide collection. Especially appealing are the sweetly illustrated little volumes sold in the 1920s by paper giant Dennison Manufacturing Co. (a 1924 issue of “Dennison’s Christmas Book.”)
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 CHRISTMAS ADHESIVE TAPE DISPENSERS ($1 to $3): Offered in myriad Yuletide motifs ranging from snowmen and elves to snow-covered church scenes, disposable dispensers of gift tape like Scotch Brand Gift Tape and Texcel Cellophane Tape helped gift-givers decorate and truly personalize the packages they placed around the tree. Though existing rolls of the c. 1950s/1960s tape are likely to have lost any of their adhesive properties, they make a novel centerpiece when placed in a large bowl or snifter container. Look for clean, crisp, unused tape that is free of sticky residue. (Here, a mint boxed display of dispensers of c. 1950s Scotch Brand Gift Tape.)
DIE-CUT SCRAPS ($5 to $25): First popularized by Victorian-era ladies who relished saving them in special scrapbooks, colorfully chromolithographed “scrap” pictures, also known as “scraps” or “chromos,” endure as sought-after collectibles. Look for pre-1940 designs (hallmarked by heavy embossing and heftier, tan-colored backing) printed in Germany and England.
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 COOKIE CUTTERS ($1 to $3): Oversized cut-out cookies rank deliciously high with holiday tastebuds, thus making vintage cookie cutters among the most usable Christmas collectibles around. Common vintage styles include bright-red hard plastic designs marked HRM and durably fun aluminum versions from Mirro. They often can be found sold with similar wares at antiques shops year-round. (Left, c. 1950s/60s plastic and aluminum cookie cutters.)
“GOLDEN AGE” POSTCARDS ($1 to $4 and up): The postcard craze of the early-20th century spawned a wide variety of colorfully illustrated greetings. Those bearing likenesses of St. Nick and snowmen can command high prices, but hundreds of endearing examples from the 1910s can be found at specialty shows for as little as 50 cents each.
 DEPARTMENT STORE BOXES ($6 to $12): Back in the 1940s and 1950s, department stores enhanced their reputations by carefully packing purchases in sturdy gift boxes elegantly emblazoned with their names. Especially handsome, Christmas versions of these boxes are fun and functional to collect, use (for gift-giving or storage) or display. (Right, a c. 1930s handkerchief box from Chicago’s Marshall Field & Co.; gold-accented gift box from Gimbels.) •
photos: Diane C. Arkins
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