COLLECTORS OF STRANGE THINGS

TOILET SEAT LIDS

Barney Smith, a retired master plumber from Texas, has an

unusual choice of art medium: toilet seats. For the past 30 years,

Barney has created over 700 artistically decorated toilet seat lids.

In 1992, he even opened his own Toilet Seat Art Museum that now

hosts about 1000 toilet seat lids.

CHEWED NICOTINE GUM

Barry Chappell started collecting chewing gum while on an

international flight. Lacking a proper place to dispose of the gum,

he held it in his hand and twirled it around into a little ball;

an action that would give birth to an unusual idea. Six years and

95,200 piece of gum later, Barry was a non-smoking superstar.

He created a gigantic piece of chewed gum that weighs 175 pounds.

HAMBURGERS

One day, Matt Malgram bought 2 hamburgers from a popular

fast food joint. He ate one, and stored the other. After a year,

he discovered that it smelt and tasted exactly the same.

Fascinated, he began a hamburger collection,

labelling them by year.

HANDCUFFS

Joseph W. Lauher has the largest collection of handcuffs

(with focus on vintage ones), leg irons, nippers, and

thumb-cuffs on the web.

MERMAID TAILS

Eric Ducharme from Florida has been fascinated with mermaids since

he was a child. At the age of 16, he put on his first show while

swimming as the mermaid prince in Weeki Wachee Springs’ Little Mermaid

show in 2006. Today, except for collecting the tales, Ducharme also

runs his own business called Mertailor that manufactures

custom-made tails.

AIR SICKNESS BAGS

The Air Sickness Bags Virtual Museum is a collection of about 2,300

air sickness bags collected by museum curator Steven J. Silberberg.

The museum is entirely online, with photographs of the various air

sickness bags; however, the actual collection is stored at Silberberg’s

residence. In addition to airplane air sickness bags, the website also

has a collection of bus sickness, sea sickness, and even

space sickness bags.

OWLS

Pam Barker from Leeds, Maine, is a huge fan of anything owl. In

2006, she set the Guinness World Record with her collection of over

18,000 owl memorabilia. A collection that includes owls printed on

towels, owl necklaces, owl statues, owl T-shirts, owl greeting cards,

plush owls, and more.

RUBBER DUCKS

Charlotte Lee from Seattle, Washington, is the Guinness World Record

holder for her 5,631 rubber ducks as of 2011. She began her

collection in 1996, and is still on the hunt.