Spooky Surprises: Boo-tiful Baubles for Halloween Jewelry Lovers

When I was a kid, our elementary school Halloween carnival was quite the shindig with a spook house and games galore, including a cakewalk. My mother would send me off with money in hand and hopeful instructions to win a cake. Baked goodness didn’t always make it home with me, but I snagged my fair share of black plastic spider rings—usually caught in a grab bag at the end of a fishing pole with a clothespin for a hook. Ah, the simple pleasures of childhood.

I can’t credit those spider rings for my grown-up love of Halloween jewelry. Still, I do think that festive yearly carnival—along with some marathon trick-or-treating merriment done with my older brother—helped me develop a fondness for the holiday in a more general sense. I’ve collected different types of Halloween memorabilia from décor to postcards over the years, but regular readers of this column won’t be surprised when I rank jewelry a notch above my other spooky treasures. That said, I’ll share some things I’ve discovered as a collector of Halloween jewelry and the designers responsible for some of my personal favorites.

Honestly, other than a few Bakelite pieces featuring pumpkins from the 1930s, you won’t find much older jewelry truly dedicated to Halloween. Most antique pieces with themes that might be viewed as macabre, such as small skeletons in coffins and rings with skull motifs, are actually memento mori—sentimental jewelry designed to remind the wearer that life is short, so get busy living. Then there’s mourning jewelry from the Victorian era with hair woven into lockets and death-related themes. As haunting as those items may seem, they’re not truly Halloween jewelry.

You will, however, discover silver and gold charms with Halloween themes dating to the 1950s and 1960s from time to time. Some people fill entire bracelets with them. But other than the plastic spider rings I was fond of playing with so long ago and a few different cheap novelties, there weren’t many items made for Halloween in the way costume jewelry for Christmas wear became so prevalent in the 1960s. You might run across a beaded necklace in orange and back colors here and there, but not much with an overt Halloween motif. That changed somewhat in the 1970s and 1980s as more and more novelty jewelry with holiday themes hit store displays in the fall. If you’re into thrifting and combing flea markets, you’ve probably seen your fair share of these little pins and pendants made of cheap plastic or metal, decorated with inexpensive enameling.

It wasn’t until the very late 20th century that collecting holiday-related jewelry really took off, and more costume jewelry designers joined the Halloween party. Some of these pieces have held their value quite well, and contemporary jewelry marketers are still introducing new lines each year to please their eager customers.

When it comes to some of the best in Halloween jewelry, collectors often turn to names that don’t fall into the run-of-the-mill category. Among my personal picks for best in show are von Walhof designs. Many of these rhinestone creations are based on vintage Halloween decorations, and that touch of charm makes me look forward to wearing them year after year. Bettina von Walhof started designing jewelry first, and then her daughter Michelle joined her in the business, and the mark changed to B&M von Walhof. These pieces, dating from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, don’t come on the secondary market frequently, but you can find a few Halloween styles from their archives currently sold on Etsy.

Another fun vintage name to watch for is Lunch at the Ritz (LATR). Jewelry by this company was often sold in boutiques and resort gift shops beginning in 1982. Their designs are known for colorful enameling and lots of dangling elements. The Halloween styles featured everything from witches and ghosts to skeletons and black cats. Large earrings were this company’s claim to fame, but they also sold other jewelry. Being well-made, most LATR is found in excellent condition, and it has held its value since its peak of popularity in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Other designers who made limited quantities of Halloween jewelry are Lawrence Vrba, whom I admire greatly, and the late Ian St. Gielar. With small workshops producing very limited amounts of jewelry, Halloween pieces bearing these names are not easy to come by (and they aren’t cheap), but they are certainly worth the effort to hunt down. Vrba’s Halloween creations are usually oversized brooches with voodoo-like skeletons as a centerpiece surrounded by orange and black embellishments. St. Gielar’s work has familiar Halloween colors but features the hand-manipulated beadwork he’s known for as one of Stanley Hagler’s protégées. Many of his pieces are marked with a Hagler signature plaque in addition to his own.

One contemporary brand that always catches my eye is Heidi Daus. It’s a company that’s been around since the 1980s. When Daus started selling on Home Shopping Network (HSN) in the early 2000s, the lines expanded, and she added quite a few Halloween items like traditional jack-o’-lanterns and witches, but others are a bit cuter, like a cat wearing a big orange witch hat. Oversized necklaces featuring large bats with tassel accents and spiders weaving jeweled webs are also fan favorites. Some styles are still available through the Heidi Daus website, but most have been retired, so there can be some competition for them when they come on the market at reasonable price points.

Kirk’s Folly is another brand sold on television from the 1990s through 2014, and then their QVC partnership was revived in 2024. Many collectors have followed the glittery escapades of Helen Kirk and her sister Jennifer on the shopping channel and purchased their fantasy-related pieces, including Halloween designs. If I’m being honest, some of the newer styles lean more toward novelty jewelry, but many of the retired pieces have quite a bit more character.
On my personal wish list is a Kirk’s Folly ghost brooch holding dangling star charms. I hope you’re inspired to add some Halloween goodies to your treasure hunt, too!

Pamela Wiggins Siegel has been buying, selling, and collecting costume jewelry for more than 30 years. She is the author of Warman’s Costume Jewelry (Krause Publications) and the co-founder of Costume Jewelry Collectors Int’l, an organization dedicated to hosting events and providing educational resources for collectors. Visit her online at www.chicantiques.com and www.cjci.co.

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