1952 Topstone Catalog

 

Hey Creeps! Let's begin the revival of our little blog with the oldest piece that resides in the Phantom's catalog collection. Fresh off the scanner bed... it's the 1952 Topstone catalog. This is one of the few Topstone catalogs that I have had the pleasure of owning and scanning to share, as most of the other Topstones that I have posted have come from other online sources or collectors.

If I may say so myself, this is a beautiful catalog. The graphic design and type treatment is gorgeous and the illustrations are simply incredible. The Chamber of Horrors page being among my personal favorite in perhaps any mask catalog. And, who can resist the allure of the glamorous Mermaid Caps?

The majority of the masks in this catalog simply don't exist today, so there is little in the way of photographs to use to compare to the illustrations. But, the little monster kid in me still can't help stare at these images and wonder what they might have looked like in person.

As a quick aside, I've tried to keep the watermarks on these scans as unobtrusive as possible. I am not trying to take ownership of these images, rather I want to avoid the issue that occurred during the early days of the monster mask blog when my un-watermarked scans of a few classic 1960's catalogs began showing up on eBay and being pawned off as originals by scammers.