We have many unusual items in our collection stemming from the fact that we received the contents of the "Dead Letter Office" in 1912.  

Outside of that, we have the "wrapper" or brown paper that the Hope Diamond was mailed to the Smithsonian.  Few believe that the Hope Diamond was sent through the mail, but it was actually sent Registered Mail.

However, what everyone remembers from the Postal Museum is "Owney" a dog that travelled all over the US and a few foreign countries with mail shipments.  He is our unofficial mascot.  "Owney" is preserved as a taxidermy specimen and on display in our atrium galleries.

>>> [log in to unmask] 03/21/00 04:34PM >>>
A drawer in a table at Biltmore that was supposed to hve been stained with
blood from Napoleons' heart!  (It was 40 years ago!)

At 08:59 AM 03/21/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>I would like to pose a question to the group. What is your most unusual
>acquisition? What is the one thing the kids go home and talk about at
>supper? The exhibit that people thirty years later remember? Examples
>from my experience include "The Amputated Leg of General Sickles" at the
>old Army Medical Museum, or the "supposed" 19th Century witch in a lead
>sealed bottle mentioned last autumn on this list. The bizarre, the
>outre, the acquisition with a folk legend attached (Hope Diamond). Tell
>the list! The item need not be on exhibit. Things from the basement like
>Yale's collection of pickled brains. Same goes for works of art! Any
>good stories accompanying them. Likewise strange curatorial experiences.
>
>David Gerrick - Information Services
>Dayton Lab
>
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