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Local antiques dealer to sell large vintage, boxed dime-store Halloween costumes at 44th Chicago Toy Show

A local antiques dealer and toy collector will be displaying and selling what is considered to be one of the largest vintage, boxed "dime-store" Halloween costume collections in the Midwest at the Fall Chicago Toy Show in suburban St. Charles. The costumes may be viewed and purchased at Ecker's booth at the 44th Chicago Toy Show from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22, at the Kane County Fairgrounds, 525 S. Randall Road in St. Charles. Show details at www.chicagotoyshow.com.

Since the mid-1980s area resident Chris Ecker has been accumulating inexpensively made Halloween costumes manufactured from the 1940s through the 1980s commonly available from national chain stores as well as neighborhood mom-and-pop stores that once dotted the American landscape.

"I recall going into the Ben Franklin store with my dad every fall and being mesmerized by the shelves of brightly colored boxes and hanging displays of Monstrous and Heroic costumes made by Ben Cooper and Collegeville costumes," Ecker remembers. "The '60s and '70s were a great time to be a kid at Halloween if you were into pop culture and superheroes."

Ecker's first adult acquisition in 1985 was a Superman costume made by Ben Cooper Inc. in 1959.

"I was working in the retail comic book industry at the time and I was at a local flea market when this 9 by 12 yellow box with beautiful drawings of Superman and Clark Kent caught my eye on one of the vendor tables."

Inside Ecker would find a faithful rayon recreation of Superman's costume which also bore the warning, "This costume will not make you fly, only Superman can fly." Then he was hooked.

From there, Ecker would pick up the garishly decorated, boxed costumes whenever he saw them at affordable prices. Over the ensuing 30 years, the collection would grow from the single item to an estimated over 400 costumes.

"I'm still in the process of identifying and pricing, but conservatively I'd say there are at least 400 individual costumes."

Characters in the collection run the range from the traditional witches, ghosts, and devils to popular toys like Barbie and G.I. Joe, pop culture icons like Jackie and John F. Kennedy, television and cartoon characters like Morticia Addams and Boss Hogg from Dukes of Hazard, and, of course, licensed Universal Monsters.

As far as value is concerned, Ecker says, "Some are as inexpensive as 10 or 15 dollars, although some are so rare, and in such nice condition they will command a heftier price tag - in the hundreds of dollars. You have to remember these are 30- to 50-year-old cheaply made fabric and vinyl costumes meant to last only one night. That any of these still exist astounds me."

To learn more about the Vintage Halloween Costume Vault, visit www.facebook.com/Vaultkeeper/.

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