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What is it? And since it has been lost to the ages (by me anyway), what was it? Let me explain . . .

One fine day in the early 1960s this budding Monster Kid found himself with family at the hugely popular L.A. County Fair. Passing by one of the multitude of hucksters hawking their wares was a booth selling -- Halloween masks! Now, why would someone go through the trouble of selling Halloween masks in the middle of summer? I didn't care!

Somehow I pleaded, threatened, or otherwise cajoled my parents to spring for one. I had my eye on a particularly creepy looking over-the-head rubber mask with hooded eyes, a pig nose and a fish fin-like rooster crest on the top of its head. The color was a deep, dirty green. And those white fangs . . .

Anyway, as luck would have it, I got my folks to plunk down the couple of bucks or whatever it cost and I spent the rest of the day alternately putting it on and walking around with it and taking it off when the temperature inside the thing reached 2nd degree burn stage. It didn't take long to find myself a photo booth (couldn't they be found at every fair?) and fire off a filmstrip while showing off my new acquisition.

There was one problem with all this, however -- I never knew then and I don't know now, who the heck this mask monster was supposed to be. And that's where you, MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD readers, come in. Anybody have any info about who the maker was and who this was supposed to be? It was a pull over mask and made of pretty thin rubber. If you've got any ideas, hunches, or even a sure thing, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

My mystery mask spent a few years hanging on a Styrofoam head intended primarily I'm sure, for lady's wigs. Then one fateful day when I decided I'd remove it, I found that sections of the rubber had melted, hardened, and stuck to the Styrofoam, an unintended victim of the relentless San Fernando Valley heat. What I've got left are the filmstrip shots that I originally took, a couple of them seen here.

Can you help solve the Great Monster Mask Mystery?

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