Prepare to be amazed by the 'Museum for Ridiculously Interesting Things' - an Instagram page founded by the brilliant mind of Dr. Chelsea Nichols. Despite being an online venture, it has unearthed some of the most captivating curiosities and artifacts you could possibly imagine. This virtual vault of the extraordinary and enchanting contains a wide array of unique finds, ranging from German-made black cat paper fans to engraved musical lyrics on Italian Notation Knives. Don't just take our word for it, take a peek and prepare to be mesmerized.
Related: 30 Historic Artifacts With Centuries of Beauty
1. These are an extremely rare set of 16th-century Italian notation knives. Each side has musical notes and lyrics engraved on the steel blade, which are intended to be sung as grace before and after a meal.
2. Amazing illustrations from a circa 1720 Japanese medical book on smallpox. It cleverly uses paper embossing to show the changing texture of smallpox lesions at different stages of the disease.
3. This gilt-bronze bat chandelier was made around 1910 by Böhlmarks, a Swedish lamp company. The pendant lights are surrounded by little furled bats hanging upside down.
4. Gold spider earrings, 300 BC to 100 BC, from the Bactrian region in modern-day Afghanistan.
5. A 15th-century painting depicting St. Bartholomew wearing his own flayed skin as a robe after being skinned alive
6. A black cat paper fan made in Germany in the 1920s.
7. This is an example of a unique trend from the mid-1600s: miniature oil portraits that came with clear slices of mica painted with different costumes.
8. A traditional Irish Jack-O'-Lantern carved from a turnip, around 1850.
9. A shoe doll that belonged to a child in London's slums in the early 20th century. It's handmade from fabric scraps and the heel of a man's worn-out shoe, with hair made from an old black sock.
10. In the early 1900s, a man wasn't able to pay for proper dentures, so he made his own from melted toothbrush handles and the teeth of a dead coyote.
11. Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin made these dummy soap heads, which they tucked into their beds to fool the night guards during their successful escape from Alcatraz Penitentiary in June 1962.
12. When you removed the lid from this Victorian gold charm, a little demon with sparkling rhinestone eyes appeared. These devil totems were worn as symbols of temperance, a reminder to resist the sinful temptation of drinking alcohol.
13. These amazing vintage Krampus claws are from a small town in Austria. They were used at an annual Krampus festival for about 70 years.
14. A neon salesman’s sample case, circa 1935
15. A tiny devil vitrified in a glass prism. In the 18th century, the Imperial Treasury of Vienna attested that this was a real demon that had been trapped in glass during an exorcism in Germany a century earlier.
