Among the oldest and most beloved of Seattle’s waterfront tourist traps is Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. It has been run by the same family since 1899. The shop stocks the same over priced kitschy T-shirts, coffee mugs, and made-in-China shot glasses you can get at a dozen other souvenir shops along the piers. But look up. The family’s been collecting truly weird stuff for over a century and much of it is hanging from the ceiling.
Nobody knows what deranged taxidermist created a “mermaid” by stitching together the top parts of a monkey with the back parts of several fish—or why—but here it is…
The cluttered shop has several really cool antique nickelodeon-type animatronic amusement machines… that still work! And a tugboat made from matchsticks in a glass case.
“Sylvester’s” mummified body was found in the Arizona desert in 1895, apparently the victim of foul play. Something of a morbid celebrity in these parts…
But amidst all the kitsch and film-flam there are some genuine treasures. Since its founding, the shop has been a promoter of and prime source for first-rate Northwest indigenous art.
art by skip johnston 