From the British Lawnmower Museum: The Greens Zyphyr Special edition Lawnmower was specially made for the Southport Flower Show in 1960; it was unearthed nearly 40 years later, still in it's wooden crate. It has multiple blades for a "fine bowling green" finish.
Some objects have multiple museums devoted to their documentation.
The humble corkscrew may be worshipped in several countries, including—where else?—in the South of France, at the Musee du Tire-Bouchon. The CORKSCREW MUSEUM has over 1,500 examples of this implement, including several unique pieces from the 17th century.
Edibles are also worthy of museum status: The MOUNT HOREB MUSTARD MUSEUM in Mount Horeb, Wis., has more than 3,000 different kinds of mustard, from almost every U.S. state and several
foreign countries. The museum shows how mustard is made,
and its visitors can taste 300 kinds of mustard. Pastrami, anyone?
The MEGURO PARASITOLOGICAL MUSEUM in Tokyo is “the
world’s one and only museum devoted to parasites.” Vaguely sinister
but fascinating, the museum contains more than 300 specimens
preserved in formalin lab bottles, as well as artifacts such
as a 28-foot tapeworm that lived inside a man who liked to eat his
trout raw. The museum is a proper research institute, where one
may learn that fully 70,000 species—six percent of all animals—
are of the parasitic persuasion.
From the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians: Wax models most accurately depict color and form, so they're important diagnostic tools. These demonstrate common eye diseases and injuries more precisely than prints or specimens. Courtesy of the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
Philadelphia does Tokyo one better; its
MÜTTER MUSEUM has
approximately 900 fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological
specimens; 10,000 medical instruments and apparati dating from
1750 to the present; about 400 anatomical and pathological models
in plaster, wax, papier-mâché, plastic, and more. While the Mütter
Museum is not for the faint of heart, those who delight in the
macabre will revel in the gory details. (I must confess that I am
one such, having once—long ago—falsified my references to gain
admittance to the private collection of the Chief Medical Examiner
of the City of New York.) No need to pretend you are a medical
professional here ... the Mütter Museum is open to the public,
every day of the year except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New
Year’s Day. Its gift shop bristles with sticky body parts, a squishy
anatomical heart, “Box ‘O’ Bones” (a puzzle with glow-in-the-dark
skeletal parts), and “The Incredible Growing Brain,” a gray model
of the brain that expands to human size when placed in water.
Death seems to have a fatal allure: One may choose from
the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FUNERAL HISTORY in Houston or
the undertakers museum in Vienna, the latter of which was
founded in 1967 and documents the history of burial rites and customs
and contains a library and an archive. One can see uniforms
of undertakers and hearses through the ages and funeral-related
paraphernalia such as reusable coffins.
Italy is the home of not one but two museums devoted to torture:
The ROME CRIME MUSEUM is housed in a former prison built
especially for Pope Leo XII in 1827. Wax models and lifelike drawings
depict a wide array of torture techniques, and actual torture
devices are on display. One of these, the Iron Maiden, was a suffocating
sarcophagus lined with flesh-piercing spikes. The criminal
walked in, and the door was gradually shut until the desired
confession was elicited. The mission of the MEDIEVAL CRIMINAL MUSEUM in Siena (aka the Museum of Torture) is to provoke thought and debate about man’s inhumanity to man. On exhibit: a
devastating display of devices such as a spiked collar, an iron gag, a
stretching ladder, thumbscrews, and a chain flail with iron stars.
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