Some people have a taste for the mundane, others are fascinated with the peculiar. If you’re one of the latter ones like me, pull your seat closer. Welcome to the “The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things,” which is an imaginary online museum that stretches between a website, Instagram and Twitter accounts, and a Facebook page with an audience of 53k strong.
Written by curator and historian Chelsea Nichols, The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things started out in 2011 as her personal blog. It was relaunched three years ago as an umbrella site for a series of digital, curatorial and writing projects dedicated to making the world a weirder and more interesting place. Today, it’s a treasure box that explores the strange place between art and curiosities.
Below we selected some of the most intriguing examples shared, or rather exhibited, at The Museum for your amusement!
#1 Dummy Head Used By Scientific Educators Around The Turn-Of-The-Century To Demonstrate Static Electricity
The demonstrator would rub the metal pole at the bottom with his hands, generating a charge that would travel up through the dummy head and make its hair stand on end.
Here are the answers to the questions I know you’ll all be asking about this:
– Yes, that is real human hair.
– No, I do not know whose hair it is.
– No, to the best of my knowledge the dummy did not ever come to life and seek revenge on the scientists who had given him so many bad hair days.
– Yes, you probably do recognize his face from that recurring nightmare that you have about getting murdered behind a gas station.
– No, I do not know why they did not paint eyelids on him, and yes of course his unblinking stare pierces my soul and fills me with a sense of cold existential dread.
– No, I do not know where you can buy one, you utter lunatic.
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#2 A Neon Salesman’s Sample Case, Circa 1935
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#3 Hans Eijkelboom, ‘With My Family’ (1973)
For this series, the Dutch photographer would ring the doorbells of strangers’ houses after he saw the husbands leave for work. He would then convince their wives to pose in a family portrait with him in the place of the father.
Another title for this series might as well be “Portrait of women who definitely don’t listen to a lot of true crime podcasts.”
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#4 When The Lid Is Opened On This Victorian Gold Charm, A Little Demon With Sparkling Rhinestone Eyes Pops Out
These (frankly adorable) devil totems were worn as symbols of temperance — a reminder to resist the sinful temptation of drinking alcohol. Probably made in the US, circa 1880.
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#5 Boots Worn By Children Who Were Struck By Lightning At St Eata’s Church In The Village Of Atcham In Shropshire, England On 13 July 1879
The children were apparently not seriously injured
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#6 Screaming Baby Dolls Made From Bisque Porcelain By German Dollmaker Kestner Around 1920
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#7 Rosamond Purcell’s Unsettling Photographs Of Monkey Specimens With Cotton Ball Eyes, From The Collection Of Harvard’s Museum Of Comparative Zoology
They look exactly like the things that stand outside your bedroom window at night watching you sleep.
Sweet dreams.
#8 An Antique Bear Automaton Whose Fur Was Destroyed By An Infestation Of Moths
The creepy naked bear pours itself a big drink with shaky paws, tossing the whole thing back in a single gulp. The magical drink never runs out thanks to a hidden tube mechanism that runs through its arms
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#9 Hard Plastic Dolls From The 1940s And 50s, Who Are All Suffering From Sad Doll Disease. This Is A Real Thing And It Is Actually Infectious
Sad Doll Disease happens to dolls made from early hard plastics, due to a chemical reaction between the cellulose acetate and the iron pins that hold their eyes in. Infected dolls start to ooze brown viscous tears, their heads warp and crack, and they begin to emit a horrible vinegar stink. Basically, this condition turns old dolls into living nightmares.
The weirdest part is that Sad Doll Disease triggers the same chemical chain reaction in other hard plastic dolls. The infectious dolls therefore have to be quarantined away from other dolls, or they too will catch it and begin to degrade. There is no cure
#10 Amazing Vintage Krampus Gloves
These frightening homemade claws come from a small town in Austria, where they were used at an annual Krampus Festival for over 70 years. They are made from goat hair, antlers, and the bitter regrets of naughty children.
A German children’s rhyme has been handwritten on the palms of the gloves, with a translation provided by the original seller @tiffasaurus.rex :
/// Hey kids – if you cheat your father, mother, and friends;
If you make noise in the school like you are in a flea market;
If you are really noisy like that, then I know I must come to scare you!
BUT if you are good children and don’t make any of the above and don’t lie,
We will enjoy this party together and flourish! ///
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#11 Late Victorian Art Pottery Known As Martinware, Which Depicts A Horrifying Crab With A Grotesque Human Face
Made by Robert Wallace Martin in June 1880, from salt-glazed stoneware.
In London in the late 19th century, Martin and his three eccentric brothers made and sold strange, Gothic-inspired pottery sculptures — now highly sought-after by collectors around the world. This creepy smiling crab is considered the pinnacle of their unique style…so much so that the UK actually banned it from being exported from the country for sale last year because it was deemed to be of such high national significance.
Although I LOVE the grotesque I still found this ruling quite surprising, considering that (according to professional art historical opinion) this thing resembles:
– a leftover troll costume from the 1991 movie Ernest Scared Stupid
– a bag of sick with a face
– a Jim Henson puppet that was horribly disfigured in a grease fire
– what happens if you anger a sea witch
– Jabba the Hutt trying on dentures
– me when I open my camera phone by mistake
– the stuff that grows at the bottom of unwashed lunch containers when you forget to take it out of your backpack for a few weeks
After it was banned from leaving the UK, this crab was purchased by The Box, a new museum and gallery opening in Plymouth, where this nightmare in the shape of a crustacean will surely traumatize delighted visitors for years to come.
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#12 A Bin Of Doll Heads Waiting To Have Their Eyelashes Trimmed
Photographed by NZ photographer Brian Brake at a Hong Kong doll factory in the 1970s. Collection of Te Papa
Their weirdly long eyelashes tickle the part of my brain that makes nightmares
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#13 If You Need A Gift For A Child You Hate, Look No Further. These Creepy Chocolate Babies Were Made As Christmas Presents In 1923
Recently discovered in a chest of drawers by British auctioneer Charles Hanson. They survived nearly a century because obviously, they were too scary even for rats to eat.
An accompanying note reads:
“To the Frocue[?] girls
With best Xmas wishes
From Kitty Stanly Hall.
OPEN WITH CARE – Oct 1923″
The note does not explain why Kitty was giving out Christmas presents in October, nor does it suggest which part of the baby’s face you were supposed to eat first.
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#14 Mechanized Gorilla Teeth And Head Gear Worn By Gorilla Impersonator Ray ‘Crash’ Corrigan In White Pongo (P.r.c. Pictures, 1945)
The metal armature and resin teeth were fastened around the actor’s face, to sit underneath his rubber gorilla suit. Wires and levers attached to his jaw and cheeks would make the gorilla nostrils snort, the mouth open and the lips snarl.
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
#15 Hendrick De Keyser (1565-1621) Was A Dutch Sculptor And Architect Inspired By The Timeless And Majestic Beauty Of A Screaming Baby’s Forehead Veins
- You Might Also Like: 26 Of The Most Interesting Examples Of The “Butterfly Effect” Happening In History
Image credits: The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
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