Collecting items is undoubtedly as old as the hills, initially it was limited to things crucial for living and sustainability.
Now people collect all sorts of stuff. Pretty much everything you can think off is being collected and kept in some attic or basement somewhere in the world. We have compiled a list of top 10 most bizarre collectibles that will certainly make you jump off your seat.
1. Old Cereal Boxes
Psychologists suggest that our childhood memories tend to stay with us for most part of our lives. But they could never encompass the whole range of memories that one could carry, certainly there was no mention of ‘Cereal boxes’. In our childhood days many of us woke up to a large colorful box of cereal with a loveable character printed on it. For some of us characters like Tucan Sam, Cap’t Crucnh, and Count Chocular are embedded in our memory. This may come as a pleasant surprise to many that there is an entire phenomenon of ‘Cereal Box Collection’. People have been buying, selling and collecting Cereal boxes from as far back as 1980’s, and some of them are really expensive. A website www.cerealbits.com is bringing the Cereal box enthusiasts together, who share, sell, and discuss their shared enthusiasm.
2. Toasters
Pretty much everyone has some sort of toaster from past decades lying around somewhere in a hidden corner of their kitchen. You will certainly be surprised to know that someone, somewhere is literally hunting for such old, and rusty toasters with religious dedication. One toaster ‘collector’s haven’ is a web platform that leads in collection of old toasters of multiple variations in the form of ornaments, cards, caps and shirts. Visit http://brightbytes.com/collection/toaster.html to have a better understanding of the scope that your old toaster has in terms of collectible value.
3. Hubcaps
You can find rows of metallic shinning hubcaps hung on the walls of many pop culture enthusiasts. You will be surprised to know that this is not a ‘new age’ phenomenon, the status of hubcaps as collectibles has been around since the 50’s and is still alive and kicking. Gaston Lapointe, who calls himself the ‘hubcap man’ has a website www.hubcap.bc.ca dedicated to his enormous collection of hubcaps. He says he has been collecting all sorts of hubcaps since 1953; he was 9 years old at that time.
4. Duct tape
This may come as a surprise to many but ‘Duct tape’ is another bizarre phenomenon out there attracting scores of Duct tape enthusiasts. A must have in your ‘Apocalypse survivor kit’; duct tape could perform a variety of tasks mainly used in repair work of all sorts. There are even YouTube videos about duct tape’s significance, along with a dedicated page on wiki. Hollywood movies and TV shows present only one use of duct tape i.e. shutting up a hostage, but in reality it has tons of usages and is considered one of the most collected items. (TopTenz)
5. Bones
Its not creepy at all, that scores of people order and collect bones. Mostly these are the fragments of animal remains, but sometime human skulls are also sold and bought. These are not the sorts of bones archeologists excavate, like fossils and dinosaur remains, these are real human bones. There is a huge black market of bone trading, and people are collecting them. This is one of the mysteries of the modern pop culture, that has no logical explanation, but it is out there nevertheless.
6. Medical and Surgical Antiques
Laurie Slater runs a website which has an archive of surgical equipments and medical antiques she has collected over the years. Her website www.phisick.com has the lists of the items she has collected from around the world. Her quest began when she developed an interest in the surgical equpments in a London based practice’s display.
7. Food
Eating is arguably a universal ritual and everyone of us has his or her preferences when it comes to food. But some of us go as far as collecting the food items from the past. For instance people buy old coke cans, vintage KFC buckets, and wrapper of various chocolates. Recently a cheese sandwich that had a face of the ‘Virgin Mary’ was sold for $28000.
8. Band-Aids
That’s right! Band-Aids! there is a disturbingly high number of platforms that sell cool Band-Aids from the past. This makes one wonder that the whole idea behind the invention of Band-Aids was for the wounds and cuts, and no one knows when these became a part of collectible culture.
www.funbandaid.com has a large online gallery of all kinds of fun Band-Aids. Another enthusiast has collected 75 years worth of Band-Aids, he even has a website www.savetz.com/bandaid.
9. Toilet paper
Another must have for your ‘Apocalypse Survival Kit’, one can easily think who would bother collecting toilet papers. But in reality there is even an online toilet paper museum cataloguing a huge collection of different sorts of toilet papers.
A famous figure amount toilet paper collectors Elena Hurwitz says that she inherited the vintage collection of toilet papers from her grandmother, and that she is determined to ensure the availability of her collection to the world.
10. Celebrity Hair
Perhaps the most expensive and widely accepted collectible item in the world is the hair from a celebrity and historic figure. Who would mind possessing a piece of the DNA of their favorite personality, especially when it has the potential to sell for a fair amount of money. Top of the list are Elvis Presley, Marilyn Manson, and Mother Theresa. Some people collect and sell the hair of famous religious figures from the past, which are then respected and sometimes worshipped.