C. R. Gibson Witch, 1912

Here is another sepia lithographic postcard published by the Fairman Company of New York in The Pink of Perfection series, in this case from Series 152. As I said a few weeks back (here), Fairman were licensed to print Gibson Art Company designs, and this is one of them. As you can see, painted into the folds of the cape is “©1912 C. R. Gibson.”

In this Gibson design we have a pretty witch, with full cheeks and pale skin, smiling at her reflection in the mirror. (Presumably, when this witch asked the magic mirror on the wall who was the fairest of them all, she got the answer she expected!) The caption reads:

Hallowe’en.
List! You are bid
By fairy and sprite
To find what’s hid
On All Hallow night

Which sounds like a treasure hunt, but perhaps what is hid(den), has been hidden in the mirror—like the philosopher’s stone in The Mirror of Erised.

And if this were the Mirror of Erised, it might explain both why the witch is so gorgeous and why she is so happy. But I digress. Check out the broom-shaped hat-pin thing tucked into her hat-band.

Back in February I did a post of a witch with the same sort of broom-shaped hat-pin (here). I’ve got to get me a hat-pin like this! [see update below]

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BTW: This card was part of a large collection that I have mentioned a few times. Doing some digging recently I discovered this entry archived online for a “Group of 7 Halloween postcards … Each card has a punch hole near top. 5 of the 7 has [a] name and number written on back. We think these were destination or sale[s] areas? Cards have all been trimmed on top edge, possibly when they were cut from manufacturing sheet.” This isn’t the way I bought this card, but it—and a few others—have a hole punched into them and a location written on the back, so I gather that the person who bought this lot, broke the cards up and sold them separately.

As you can see, the note on this card reads “Fort Schuyler / No. 4″. Fort Schuyler is in the Bronx in New York. So, perhaps, this card was hocked around the Bronx by salesman no. 4 in 1912.

[UPDATE 2 August 2011: See here for the third example I have of a broom-shaped hat-pin (including an image of all three hat pins together)]