Ohio Finds: Tin Jack-O’-Lantern

The Halloween we celebrate today would be little recognized by the original Celtic celebrants from whose harvest holiday, Samhain, our modern traditions evolved. But the traces of those ancient customs remain.

The term “jack-o’-lantern” was used in folklore to describe the faint eerie lights that floated above bogs, and while costumes and trick-or-treating are more modern notions, using a carved vegetable as a lantern has much older roots.

Eighteenth-century Irish pranksters hollowed out turnips or mangelwurzels (a type of beet), carved faces into them and used stumps of candles to illuminate them. Carved turnips eventually became carved pumpkins, which inspired this tin lantern.

This item was patented in 1902 and manufactured by the Toledo Metal Sign Co. It was mounted on a pole or hung on the end of one with a hook and lit from within by a candle. Finding one of these lanterns in excellent condition is a real treat for collectors, but the trick is finding one as affordable as this one was when it sold a few years ago for $2,500. Today, a similar example would be more likely to sell for $5,000 or more.

Sold: $2,500

Hollie Davis is a co-owner of Meander Auctions in Whipple, Ohio. meanderauctions.com