The owner of Schooner Bay Company said rival companies ranging from Tem to Tractor Supply Company have refined its design and manufactured counterfeit products overseas.
It’s that time of year when adults and children alike embrace the legend of Halloween.
From wholesome pumpkins to spooky stories, people often delve into their ghostly side by displaying reproductions of these items inside and outside their homes.
At Schooner Bay Company in East Berlin, Pennsylvania, this is one of the busiest times of the year. Approximately 40 types of Halloween-themed items Manufactured and sold online.
Schooner Bay Company offers a variety of historic decorative items for the home and office, including thousands of favorite images from the 17th century.th From the first century to the present. Business during the Halloween season is second only to the Christmas holiday.
Although Schooner Bay imports many of its products from India, all of its gory Halloween products are designed and manufactured in its American workshop.
“We make all of our artwork, decorative trays, holiday ornaments, and wooden silhouettes in-house in East Berlin,” says owner Megan Reeve. “I would have to say that our most popular product for Halloween is the Headless Horseman silhouette. Our silhouette is made of pressed wood and placed on a wooden stand.”
“The Headless Horseman” depicts two headless horsemen sitting against an orange moon in the background. The Headless Horseman is a mythical figure who has appeared in European folklore since the Middle Ages and continues to be popularized in the United States through literature and films such as the 1820 short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the 1999 Tim Burton film. Masu. “Sleepy Hollow”
The Headless Horseman of Schooner Bay has attracted attention from people in China, even though Halloween celebrations in the communist country are limited to the display of a few items such as pumpkins and pumpkins in stores selling Western products. It has become so popular.
However, Chinese manufacturers have a keen eye when it comes to copying and reproducing Halloween items for sale in America.
“We started selling wooden silhouettes on Amazon two years ago, but soon some Chinese sellers started tricking us, mainly with headless horseman scenes,” Reeve said. said. “And this year, the wife of one of our employees went shopping at Tractor Supply and saw a plastic light-up version of our Headless Horseman Moon design on display. That’s what was copied.
“We make this with wood, and it has an orange moon printed on it, and we line it all up and cut it out with a laser engraving machine, and it’s all made of wood. Theirs is a light-up plastic one. However, when I googled Tractor Supply and Headless Horseman, I found that You can see that the cutouts are exactly the same. They didn’t change anything.
“They’re really easy to copy and we’re small so we haven’t trademarked anything. It costs money to trademark or copyright everything and we don’t have We don’t have the resources to do that. We don’t have much recourse.”
While business has steadily increased each year since Schooner Bay was founded in 2018, Leib has noticed a slight decline in Headless Horseman sales.
“I found some tree silhouettes on Amazon and also on Temu,” says Leib. “Sales are definitely down compared to before. That’s the idea, especially for a company like Tractor Supply that claims to be for working people and for the hard-working people that America represents. is.”
But despite declining sales, the company has a long list of Halloween items, as well as historical reproductions designed in wood, bone, iron, glass, porcelain and brass based on found antiques. We continue to provide it.
“We have a whole frame shop, and we do all our prints on framed canvas or paper, and we cut the Schellenschnits and silhouettes in the paper,” Lieb said. “Although we import bone boxes and wooden boxes, we also print and engrave them in-house.”
Schooner Bay also features a variety of reproductions of paintings from the originals made hundreds of years ago. The company has a diverse collection of official reproductions created specifically for it, and also uses photographs and paintings that are in the public domain.
“Anything that’s more than 100 years old is out of copyright and in the public domain,” Reeve said. “You can go to major museum websites and download high-quality images of real art objects. You can do whatever you want with it.”
Schooner Bay Co. has 12 employees who oversee everything from production to design, packaging and shipping. Most items are sold at affordable prices in this crowded market.
In addition to selling on their website, Schooner Bay also sells products on Amazon, Etsy, Chairish, and E-Bay. American-made Halloween items include click here.
