Collecting

Muggles Are Selling the Chair in Which 'Harry Potter' Was Created

The decorated dining room chair J.K. Rowling used to write her iconic novels is going on sale

Instead of Cheesy Pickup Lines, 19th-Century Americans Gave Out Calling Cards

Consider it the Victorian-era version of OKCupid

Remember These Free AOL CDs? They're Collectibles Now

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In this intricate mechanical bank, the user balances a coin on the miniature man's gun, which then shoots the coin into a slot in the tree.

One Man's Obsession With Antique Toys Resulted in a Museum

The Portland, Oregon, attraction is more than just the stuff of Kidd's play

A stunning, modern wing of the Royal Library of Copenhagen, added in 1999.

The World's Most Interesting (and Accessible) Library Collections

From the Magna Carta to Winnie the Pooh, what you can see at some of the world's great libraries

The Panoramic Encyclopedia of Everything Elvis, located in Cornelia, Georgia.

The King's Keepers: Five Quirky Locations for Finding Elvis Beyond Graceland

From Georgia to Connecticut, Elvis' spirit lives on in unexpected places

Charles Dodgson

Lewis Carroll Hated Fame So Much He Almost Wished He'd Never Written His Books

At least, that's what he said in a letter, now in the University of Southern California library

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Welcome to the World’s Only Museum Devoted to Penises

In Iceland, a man has collected 283 preserved penises from 93 species of animals—including Homo sapiens

Aviation, curiously, is the same age as the motion picture business.

How David Mamet Became a Memorabilia Addict

The famed playwright reminisces about how he got hooked on collecting artifacts from the golden era of air travel

The Tucker on display at the National Museum of American History.

The Tucker Was the 1940s Car of the Future

Visionary inventor
 Preston Tucker risked everything when he saw his 1948 automobile as a vehicle for change

Andrea Ludden's collection of over 40,000 pairs of salt and pepper shakers started completely by chance when Ludden bought a pepper mill at a garage sale in the mid-1980s.

Would You Like Some Salt and Pepper? How About 80,000 Shakers' Worth?

Over the course of just a couple of decades, the Ludden family has amassed enough novelty shakers to fill two museums

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More Astounding Modern Art Collectors

Like the Steins, other collectors and patrons influenced 20th-century art by supporting new genres and unheralded artists

Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso courted the Steins by doing portraits of them. Pictured are Gertrude, left, and Leo, center, by Picasso and sister-in-law Sarah by Matisse.

An Eye for Genius: The Collections of Gertrude and Leo Stein

Would you have bought a Picasso painting in 1905, before the artist was known? These siblings did

A National Postal Museum exhibition includes postage stamps that President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped design. FDR's stamps helped him relax.

From the Castle - FDR's Stamps

FDR's Stamps

First baseman Frank Chance was known as "the Peerless Leader."

Portraits of Baseball's Tinker, Evers and Chance

The famed Chicago Cubs infielders were immortalized in verse—as well as through Paul Thompson's lens

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A Collection of Baseball Firsts

Who hit the first grand slam? Who was the first pinch hitter? Presenting the nine players of Smithsonian’s "They Did It First" All-Star Team

At an 18th-century auction in Amsterdam, Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter sold for about one-third the amount that its owner spent to obtain a then rare Conus gloriamaris shell.

Mad About Seashells

Collectors have long prized mollusks for their beautiful exteriors, but for scientists, it’s what inside that matters

Teal sea glass

Sea Glass: The Search on the Shore

Part of the sea glass hunting elite, Nancy and Richard LaMotte are finding the treasures they covet harder to come by

The Tragedy of Lucretia, Sandro Botticelli, ca. 1500-1501

Botticelli Comes Ashore

With the purchase of Botticelli’s Death of Lucretia, Isabella Stewart Gardner took American collecting in a new direction

Author of Old Masters, New World Cynthia Saltzman

Q&A: Cynthia Saltzman

The author of Old Masters, New World discusses how 19th century American collectors acquired European masterpieces

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