What is a Wonder Cabinet?
The word wunderkammer means chamber of wonders or cabinet of curiosities. I first read about the concept of a wunderkammer in 2009 while flipping through Make: Magazine Vol. 17.
I learned that in the 16th century, wealthy Europeans, scholars, and nobility would have a special room of their house where they collected rare and exotic specimens or artifacts of the natural world.
A typical wunderkammer was an eclectic mix of rocks and minerals, animal parts such as teeth, bones, horns, claws, and feathers, as well as books, plant samples, and other strange or unusual natural objects.
From the first time I heard about the wunderkammer, I loved the idea! Then, I got an idea that I could make my own modern-day version, filled with keepsakes and mementos from my own life.
Buying the Cabinet
I knew I wanted a cabinet where the doors also had storage inside, which was kind of hard to find. I bought this cabinet on craigslist in late 2011. I believe I paid just $20 dollars for it, but I had to drive about 1 hour away to pick it up. The cabinet looks to be homemade. The doors sag and catch on the base. I do not know what the original purpose of this cabinet was, but my best guess is storage for cassette tapes. I gave it a good cleaning, and have owned it for many years now. Over time, I added some crude half-shelves that I made myself out of scrap wood for additional storage.
What’s Inside
The purpose of my cabinet is to be a catch-all for knick-knacks, doodads, souvenirs, and other personal or sentimental items that I just don’t know where else to keep them. Here is a list of what I keep in there:
- Prize tickets from defunct local pizza chain “Pistol Pete’s Pizza”
- Hotel room key card collection
- Airline “pilot wings” collection
- My collection of round buttons
- Vintage 1960s Silva Swedish compass/signal mirror
- An egg of “Silly Putty”
- Various movie tickets and admission ticket stubs
- A harmonica or blues harp
- Friendship bracelets
- Steel balls from the ghost town of Ruby, Arizona
- A “tornado tube” device for connecting two 2-liter soda bottles together
- Decks of cards and dice from Las Vegas casino gift shops
- Miniature Tic-Tac boxes
- Collection of old badges and ID cards
- A Coca-Cola IYDKYDG campaign tin from 1999
- Collection of 50ml “mini” airline bottles
- Neodymium magnets pulled from discarded DVD burners
- A 3.7 ml (1/8 oz) bottle of Tabasco sauce
- Pair of vintage Kodak film canisters
- Box of shells I collected at the beach
- Two old pagers/beepers
- A cedar box from the White Mountains, New Hampshire, USA
- A TWA Flight Plan that was given to me by a captain sometime in the 1990s
- Japanese style paper fans
- A laser pointer
- Arizona State Parks passport book
- Shoulder patches from police & fire departments
- Three expired Bendix CD V-742 dosimeters
- Flattened souvenir penny collection
- My coin collection
- US State Quarters
- National Park Quarters
- Bag of pre-1982 pennies (real copper)
- Paper money collection
- A US Silver Certificate and some $2 bills
- My collection of “Star Notes”
- Matchbook collection
- Keychain collection
- Baseball from now-defunct Phoenix Firebirds minor league baseball team (from before Arizona got the Diamondbacks MLB team)
- Pocket watch looking thing is an old portable multimeter that reads Volts and Amps on an analog dial. The leads are missing. It says “Depose registered D.R.G.M. 218725 France.” I bought it for $2.00 in 2017 and have been unable to find anything about it online.
- A toy red wagon
- A plastic USPS mail truck that dispenses a roll of stamps
- An old leather wallet
- A battery-operated fan
- A box of polished stones and gems
- An old leather key holder
I look forward to adding more unique and weird objects to my cabinet of curiosities. What do you think?
