curio… any unusual article, object of art, etc., valued as a curiosity (1851, shortened from curiosity)

curiosity… anything curious, rare, or strange
… a curious, rare or novel thing

The Victorians sustained a passion for collecting that has not abated since the death of the Great Queen and Empress. In most fashionable homes you would find a curio cabinet housing objects of special interest. Often these were things of human artifice, works of art, works of utility, or just novelties, collected from the far-flung reaches of the Empire. But it was not only Victoria’s subjects who brought home curios. Citizens of all countries, including the United States, who traveled abroad for education, trade, service or simply for pleasure, brought home their treasures and regaled their acquaintances with strange stories and curious displays.

There are collectors for everything imaginable, and probably for everything unimaginable as well. A curio cabinet might feature objects from a single domain such as knives from around the world (daggers, stilettos, kukris, kris, etc), or carved ivories (chess men, figurines, letter openers, Chinese balls, etc), or it may contain a hodge-podge of artifacts from different domains. Nor were cabinets limited to works of art or utility. Commonly they held curiosities of Nature (always capitalized in the Romantic Victorian mind). Oologists collected birds’ eggs, malacologists collected shells, ladies collected strange pebbles, or fossils. There were two-headed monkeys, dried sea horses, and of course the ever popular, ever mystifying, chimeras.

With a courteous bow to Charles Dickens, we call our virtual curio cabinet The Old Curiosity Shop. In it we display a miscellany of artifacts that defy easy classification and will not fall readily into any other category. Here you will find curiosities mostly old and antique, some very old, some less old; things curious, some very curious, some less so; things that would always have been curious and some that are curious to us because their original functions have been lost in time, or because their plenitude has disappeared and they are now rarities. Browse the list and check us out from time to time – there will always be something strange or amusing!