Wunderkammer – Melbourne, Australia - Atlas Obscura

The word ‘wunderkammer’ translates as ‘wonder-chamber’. These collections of curiosity were the first museums and housed both the familiar museum fare such as natural specimens, minerals, and coins, as well as more aberrant and miraculous objects such as religious reliquaries, double apples, ‘mermaids’ and the like.

This Wunderkammer is both a museum and a retail store. The shop specializes in science and natural history. The collection includes antique botanical prints, anatomical models, specimens preserved in vintage glass canisters, fossils, medical instruments, and insects mounted in hand blown specimen domes. The scope of Wunderkammer is as broad as the scope of human scientific inquiry. The owner of Wunderkammer, Ray Meyer, chooses the objects for the collection based on standards of beauty, rarity, historical or educational value and, of course, the ability to inspire wonder.

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June 23, 2009

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