One of the “hottest” cutters at Halloween is the antique black cat, according to Paisner, who said cookies dressed up as black cats were very popular at the CCCC meeting. The collector who brought the cookies had used an antique carnival mask as the model for her cutter, she said. “You wouldn’t believe how many black cats are out there,” Paisner said. You can find scary cats and smiling ones, too. Some cats are sitting, while others are lying down or hunched, she said.
“Go on eBay, and you’ll be blown away at the variety of cookie cutters up for bid.” Cookie cutters can go for 25 cents or hundreds of dollars, Paisner said. New or antique, cutters can be made from tinplate, stainless steel, wood, plastic or copper. The 3-D cutters are very collectible, she said. There are CCCC members, including Paisner, who make custom and stock cutters.
Many of them are artists or coppersmiths, according to Paisner, who said she got hooked on cookie cutters when as a teen she helped her mother make and decorate Christmas cookies “The cutouts my mother used were quite special,” she said. She became a serious collector when a friend gave her a gift certificate to a cake decorating class. “I really got into it,” she said. “I bought cutters at antique sales, yard sales, flea markets. Anywhere I could find them. I couldn’t get enough.
“That’s how it begins with anything you collect,” she said. “You pick up one, then two. It becomes addictive.” Recently, Paisner decided to sell some of her duplicates. “Don’t ask me why, but we (collectors) always end up with two or three of the same cookie cutters. I guess when you have so many, you can forget what you have,” she said. “Cookie cutters don’t take a lot of space to store.