Hoodoo Curio Catalogues

A while back I made a popular post about some old time curio catalogues. This blog has found many new readers since that time: today we shall re-feature the story so that they can see these interesting delights for themselves!

Was Googling about trying to find some new incense for the Hoodoo Review project, when I came across an interesting site called the Church of Good Luck. In addition to some old pictures of antique hoodoo items (such as incense, which was what fielded my results to them) they have another interesting thing for the eyes of collectors -- complete scans of old hoodoo curio catalogues! It's interesting to see how common a lot of this artwork that was used in the 40s still is: a great deal of Lucky Mojo's product artwork is pulled right from the King Curio line of the 40s, and Augustine's Spiritual Goods [Ed: now called The Lucky Mojo Bag Company, apparently finding that's actually less likely to get them sued than the old name] also reuses a lot of the artwork in their own catalogue. In addition to magical items, the books usually have sections selling jewelry, and hair straighteners and skin lighteners. I also recognized, in the cover art for a book clept "The Magical Science of Black Arts" (from the 1930 King Curio) the same cover used on a book I own called "The Devil's Legacy to Earth Mortals" (from ca. the 1890s.) And because I am secretly a 15 year old boy, I could help but snicker at the "douche powder."

(I wish some of this stuff were still available! I'd totally buy an incense burner that looks like a cat puking smoke!)