Museums of the Weird

"Painless Parker" wore a necklace of teeth to lure in achy victims.

A Brief History of America's Most Outrageous Dentist

Painless Parker and his dental circus live on in a Philadelphia museum

Collection of Fossilized Poo Certified as World's Largest

George Frandsen's 1,200-piece coprolite collection earns the Florida man a spot in Guinness World Records

A Brief History of Bog Butter

Turf cutters in Ireland regularly find chunks of butter deep in the nation's peat bogs. What is the stuff doing there?

The world's first ring designed for racing cars, built in 1907. It's one of 21 sites Historic England is asking more information on from the public

Help England Crowdsource Its History

Historic England is asking the public for information and photos on 21 weird and wonderful sites on its list of historic places

A skin affliction on display at the Moulage Museum.

See Over 2,000 Wax Models of Skin Diseases at This Swiss Medical Moulage Museum

It's hard to look, and hard to look away, at this unique, and medically valuable, collection of wax blisters, hives and sores

Five Fascinating Places to Visit This Obscura Day

<i>Atlas Obscura</i> celebrates all things weird and wonderful worldwide this Saturday

A box from Zuppardi's in West Haven, Connecticut.

Chicago Is Getting a Pizza Museum

Hold the anchovies: This pop-up is a pizza-lover’s dream

George Washington seems to be crying as he stares at FDR.

How 43 Giant, Crumbling Presidential Heads Ended Up in a Virginia Field

After an ambitious monument went bust, big dreams—and big heads—remain

A spoon and bowl for dieters.

Embrace the Art of Failure at Austria's Nonseum

From nosepickers to historic buttonholes, the Nonseum is full of failed inventions

The Cape Hatteras Light of North Carolina, on the Atlantic Ocean.

The Lonely, Lifesaving Job of Lighthouse Keepers, Revealed at the National Lighthouse Museum

A new museum in Staten Island tells the stories of men and women who ran lighthouses throughout America’s history and shows off some unique antiques

In this intricate mechanical bank, the user balances a coin on the miniature man's gun, which then shoots the coin into a slot in the tree.

One Man's Obsession With Antique Toys Resulted in a Museum

The Portland, Oregon, attraction is more than just the stuff of Kidd's play

A paternoster elevator can be thrilling, or just scary.

Ride This Bizarre, Old-School Elevator Before They All Shut Down

The paternoster elevators of Europe are weird, a bit scary and getting harder and harder to find. For now, there are still a few you can ride

Like many ancient statues, this Medusa is missing a nose

A Museum Keeps The Fake Noses That Once Replaced Those Missing on Ancient Sculptures

The exhibit is a testament to art restoration’s changing values

At the Mbad African Bead Museum in Detroit, Obscura Day visitors can see beads almost 400 years old.

This Obscura Day, Discover the Curiosities in Your Own Backyard

Creepy dolls, KGB secrets and unexpected pinball troves—media startup Atlas Obscura invites readers to explore their own hometowns on May 30

The rooftop garden and colonnade at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Inside Los Angeles's Strangest Museum

Enter the dark and completely unique world of the Museum of Jurassic Technology

The surf is always up at this "way cool" California museum, which celebrates the sport and its legends.

The California Surf Museum

Learn about the evolution of the surfboard from 1912 through 2008 in this small gallery in Oceanside, California

Brad Penka can't say enough about barbed wire's winning of the West.

The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum

With more than 2400 variations of barbed wire, this La Crosse, Kansas, museum has a lot to teach the non-farmers out there

The museum was established as a place where medical students could study specimens. Shown here is a 3-D image of a male skeleton from a recent exhibition.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine

This Silver Spring, Maryland site scares and educates, with displays of prosthetic eyes, amputated limbs and incomplete skeletons

Quack medicine? Inhaling the breath of a duck, according to the exhibit, was once used to cure children of thrush and other disorders of the mouth and throat.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology

A throwback to the private museums of earlier centuries, this Los Angeles spot has a true hodgepodge of natural history artifacts

Whimsy runs riot at Harvey Ladew's Maryland estate, from a library with a shelf that swings open to reveal a secret entrance to the gardens to the topiary hedges, featuring a fat man walking a tiny dog, and a rider and hounds in hot pursuit of a fox.

Ladew Topiary Gardens

Clipped hedges and a house full of antiques are the main attractions for this museum north of Baltimore, Maryland

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