Collecting

“The World Made Wondrous: The Dutch Collector’s Cabinet and the Politics of Possession” takes a 17th-century Dutch cabinet as its starting point, tracing the threads of Dutch colonization through each object on view.

How Cabinets of Curiosities Laid the Foundation for Modern Museums

An exhibition at LACMA examines the legacy of Dutch colonization through a fictive 17th-century collector's room of wonders

The "Inverted Jenny," 1918, one of the rarest and most valuable stamps in the world, celebrates the first air mail in the U.S.—by depicting an inadvertently upside-down airplane.

Why Collectors Fall Head Over Heels for the 'Inverted Jenny' Stamp

One of the rare 24-cent misprints sold at auction this week for a record-breaking $2 million

Only ten known examples of Babe Ruth's rookie baseball card still exist today.

Only Ten Babe Ruth Rookie Baseball Cards Survive. Now, One Is Going Up for Auction

Bidding starts at $2.5 million, but the auction house expects the 1914 collectible to sell for much more—and possibly break memorabilia records

The Aftel Archive of Curious Scents has been drawing commercial perfumers with a nose for aromas, gardeners, cooks and others since 2017.

This California Museum Is Home to Hundreds of Nature's Scents

Perfumer Mandy Aftel's spellbinding collection of rare essences and artifacts is on display at the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents in Berkeley

The female whale was found stranded in January on a beach near Palm Coast, Florida.

How an Orca Skeleton Made Its Way From Florida to the Smithsonian

Washed up in a rare stranding event, the newly collected specimen will offer rich exploration for researchers

Brooker began collecting in 1959 in Paris and has been assembling his library ever since.

Trove of Rare Renaissance Books Could Fetch $25 Million at Auction

T. Kimball Brooker has amassed a collection of more than 1,300 texts from the 16th century

Humans hunt, kill or capture a massive number of species. Surprisingly, most of this is for non-food reasons.

Humans Take Out More Wild Species Than Any Other Predator on Earth

We kill, collect or otherwise use about 15,000 vertebrate species

The sale is by far the largest, and certainly most significant, auction of Hawthorne papers in history.

You Could Own Nathaniel Hawthorne's Handwritten Notes on 'The Scarlet Letter'

Enjoy an exclusive preview of an auction of the novelist's papers, which feature rarely seen edits and atrocious penmanship

Portable altar of Countess Gertrude, shortly after 1038

Heirs of Jewish Art Dealers Move Forward With Yearslong Restitution Battle

For over a decade, they've argued that their ancestors were forced to sell valuable artifacts. Now, they're back in court with a new legal strategy

Ad Palmen collected a diverse array of rare European and American cars for 40 years.

230 Rare Classic Cars Are Going Up for Auction in the Netherlands

Stored for 40 years in two warehouses and an abandoned church, the valuable vehicles include a variety of European and American makes and models

The heist seemed like a mystery that would never be solved—until a deathbed confession by a career criminal led to the recovery of almost all of the missing timepieces.

The Time Thief Who Stole 106 Rare Clocks in a Daring Heist

Authorities eventually recovered 96 of the lost timepieces, including a $30 million watch commissioned for Marie Antoinette

This Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe, which brought in $195 million, was one of many high-profile sales last year. 

The Art Market Is Rebounding—but Only at the Top

Sales increased in 2022, but growth was concentrated largely at the high end of the market

Candy Wrapper Museum curator Darlene Lacey was 15 when she started collecting for her "roadside attraction." Building the online museum has led to all kinds of surprises—including being sent a Necco scrapbook saved from a dumpster (pictured above).

Take a Peek Inside the Candy Wrapper Museum

Your trash is my treasure—and a sweet reminder of the past

More than 3,000 lunchboxes are on display inside the World's Largest Lunchbox Museum.

A Nostalgic Trip Awaits at the World's Largest Lunchbox Museum

Take a journey back to your elementary school cafeteria with a visit to the Georgia outpost

The middle section of Dance on the Beach (1906) by Edvard Munch

This 13-Foot-Long Munch Painting Was Hidden From the Nazis in a Norwegian Forest

"Dance on the Beach" will be going up for auction for the first time since the 1930s

Jim Metzner recording on Great Gull Island

In Thousands of Recordings, Jim Metzner Collected Sounds From Around the World

The Library of Congress has acquired the prolific radio producer's full body of work

To grab pedestrians’ attention, Pahl built a 19-foot-tall hammer and erected it on the lawn in front of the museum in 2007.

A Small Town in Alaska Is Home to the World's First Hammer Museum

Perhaps no one knows the history of the tool better than collector Dave Pahl, who opened a shrine of his artifacts in Haines 20 years ago

Ornithologist Edmund Selous made empathy for birds respectable and, in doing so, changed the world. Bird-watching became a popular pastime, eventually making birding scientific and playing a pivotal role in the animals’ conservation.

How Bird Collecting Evolved Into Bird-Watching

In the early 1900s, newfound empathy for avian creatures helped wildlife observation displace dispassionate killing

Albert “Kid” Mertz (above: Untitled, c. 1980) painted hundreds, possibly thousands of railroad spikes he had collected from tracks near his property, giving each spike a cheerful face.

The Allure of Self-Taught Art

SAAM’s new show “We Are Made of Stories” examines the 20th-century rise and creative vision of artists who make art without formal training

This commemorative sculpture by an Edo artist is one of 29 objects the Smithsonian is proposing to repatriate to Nigeria. 

Why the Smithsonian Adopted a New Policy on Ethical Collecting

For more than a century, museum artifacts were acquired in ways we no longer find acceptable. How can we repair the damage?

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