At Hog Creek Antique Mall in Hillsdale County, the vintage plastic Santa sleigh lawn ornament is going for $325.
Don’t even think about trying to haggle, especially this time of year. The sales tag at the craft and antique seller on the Jolly Old Elf and his red-nosed reindeer says the price is "FIRM."
The retailer can charge this much for old, colored plastic because in the past few years demand for these outdoor decorations — gold to collectors — have gone up and up and up.
"They're hot now," said Michelle Barrows, the owner of Hog Creek. "Everyone is after them. Vintage Christmas is very hot. A lot of it has to do with people remembering them growing up, so they want to find one like they had."
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Even the Grinch, with a sinister smile, is going for $89.99 on Amazon. And he wanted to steal Christmas.
The seasonal outdoor decor, known as blow molds, have become increasingly valuable as the companies that made them went out of business and as collectors remember them from their childhood.
The price, Barrows said, often depends on the decoration's size, condition and age. Smaller blow molds, the kind you can hold in the palm of your hand, might go for $30. Larger ones, nearly life sized, sell for almost $500.
And they're not just for Christmas. There are decorations for Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving — all the holidays.
They’re made by blasting air to mold hot plastic into hollow molds to make three-dimensional shapes. Often they are colorfully painted and have lights inside so that they glow at night.
The decorations became especially popular in the '70s, and decorations from that time are now among some of the most desirable. The decorations are durable, enduring snow, rain, heat — and strong gusts if you weigh them down.
The pink lawn flamingo, designed in 1957, is an example of a blow mold.
Sometimes they are passed down. They also are for sale at antique malls like Hog Creek and online retailers. There are even social media sites, like Very Vintage Christmas (buy, sell, trade, show off) on Facebook, that focus on the decorations.
In the Facebook group, blow mold admirers from all over the country complain about the prices, reminisce about decorations they recall and share favorites from their collection or findings that might interest others.
A Tennessean posts that she saw a schoolhouse at an antique store, but it's going for $225, which she thinks is too much, adding, "I am waiting for her to call me to see what's the least she will take for it. I sure do love it though!"
Another poster: "I think everyone in Indiana heard me screaming at the Goodwill store today when I found this blow mold for $4." She added: "It is filthy, it smells terrible, and is missing some of the bulb pegs and the star on top. But I don’t even care!!"
Gayle Manley, a freelance feature writer who has collected the decorations and even toured a factory where they were made, pointed out in the NY-PA Collector that the "figures have grown to be so beloved that enthusiasts and collectors shop all year round to find prized additions for their holiday landscape."
"The prices are absolutely skyrocketing now," she told the Free Press, noting how some are now selling for as much as $1,700. "They are a precious piece of American culture. They really are. They are iconic images of the wholesomeness of Christmas."
The decorations were made in the United States by "everyday, hardworking Americans who took pride in what they did," she said. The blow-up figures that have replaced them, she added, just don't have the same enduring charm.
While some people find the blow mold decorations quite kitschy, others — including the Martha Stewart lifestyle brand — consider them art.
MarthaStewart.com said the decorations are "equal parts festive and nostalgic." The figures — "think Santa Claus, reindeer and candy canes" — brighten up “lawns, porches, and sometimes roofs."
The decorations also include figures from nativity scenes.
Good Housekeeping, the magazine that for more than a century has written about domestic issues, said earlier this month that "blow mold decorations are making a comeback."
"If you reflect on your childhood, chances are you might remember seeing homes in your neighborhood illuminated with these plastic figures," according to the publication. "There's just something special about them."
Collectors are paying a premium to buy them, and are scouring flea markets, garage sales and antique malls.
Barrows, who is not quite 60 and has her own collection of about 15-20 blow mold decorations, said that collectible trends tend to come and go and often are connected to childhood memories.
"The antique market changes according to the age of its customers," she said. "Twenty, 30 years ago, the cowboy stuff was hot. And a lot of kids today don't recognize cowboys."
Right now, she said, blow molds are hot because people shopping in antique stores are the generation from the '60s and '70s.
The other day, she was driving by a house and saw a guy in his 70s in a yard full of blow molds. So she stopped and asked him if he wanted to sell any of them. He said no, he collects them.
A couple weeks later, she said, the man walked into her store and bought some more.
Use gentle cleaners, like dish detergents. Use a soft cloth, paper towels or baby wipes to get the dirt off, but don’t scrub hard and avoid harsh chemicals. It can damage the paint. If the paint fades, it can be touched up with a light coat of plastic-friendly spray paint.
Replace incandescent bulbs with LEDs. Don’t use incandescent bulbs more than 40 watts. Consider switching to LEDs. They don’t get as hot, use less energy and tend to last longer. It’s an easy update for old decorations.
Repair cracks with clear epoxy. Often you can fix damage from the inside by gluing a strip of plastic, something you might cut from a juice container, like a Band-Aid. More significant damage can often be repaired by using parts from broken molds.