The ‘St Dennistoun Mortuary’ is a macabre coin-operated automaton made around 1900. When a coin is inserted, the doors open to reveal morticians working on several dead bodies laid out on embalming tables.
Categories: Curiosities, Historical Art • Tags: automaton, curiosities, death, memento mori
A creepy 19th century automaton of a monkey dressed as a pastry chef, serving a severed cat head in a pastry pie
Categories: Curiosities, Unsettling Things • Tags: animal, automaton, cat, creepy, monkey
Does your chewing gum give you nightmares? If not, the Blinkey Eye Soda Mint Gum Machine is here.
Categories: Curiosities • Tags: automaton, creepy, curiosities, eye, horror
Tipu’s (or Tippoo’s) Tiger is a life-sized wooden mechanical organ made around 1793, depicting a tiger mauling a man in European clothing. When the crank is turned, a hidden mechanism causes the man’s arm to goes up and down, and plays his wails of agony along the growls of the tiger. Under a flap on the tiger’s body there is also a small pipe organ, which can play 18 notes.
Categories: Curiosities, history, Museums • Tags: animal, art, automaton, colonialism, figurine, grotesque, history, india, music, sculpture, tiger
The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things