Rutter’s Wonders
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 27th, 2006
Edinburgh’s Scotsman has highlighted one of my favorite person’s cabinet of curiosities. Gordon Rutter is a specialist in the weird world of Fortean wonders and cryptozoological artifacts. A mycologist (yep, a mushroom and fungus expert) by trade, having worked in museums during his career, Gordon nowadays is a teacher and writer living in Scotland. It was with Gordon that my sons and I stayed in 1999, before our trek took us onward to Loch Ness.
The Scotsman overviews Rutter’s collection of about 100 weird and strange items in his personal collection:
When you walk into the front room of Gordon Rutter’s Edinburgh flat, the sofa’s there, but squeezed between his one-eyed pig, his feejee mermaid, his skull collection and of course – the must-have for every cryptozoologist Scot – a miniature Loch Ness Monster. For Rutter is one of a dying breed of gentlemen-collectors - people who hunt down and collect the unusual, the different, if we’re being honest … the downright weird.
Here’s a photograph with some of Gordon’s items (including a replica of the Piltdown skull up front), not published with the story:
His living room is home to things as diverse as a ten-legged spider, a petrified teddy bear, a shrunken head (banished to the hall as it smells), a couple of mermaids and a cast of his own teeth.
The article continues, mentioning his jackalope and a fur-bearing trout, and moving on to list that he has:
fossilized fingers, rings that belonged to (real) giants, a painted bowl made from a human skull, an ostrich egg mounted on an ostrich foot (’why not?’), plus a whole lot of other weird things…He has now become well-known as a collector of the unusual and people come to him with the offer of items for sale. He is presently mulling over whether or not to buy a seven-legged lamb – a bit pricey at £1,500 - but found himself unable to resist his latest acquisition, a genuine Cyclops piglet.
“The little pig, with its freaky single eye, sits beside his computer screen, under the jackalope (half rabbit/half deer) and close to his stuffed crocodile,” notes the Scottish newspaper.
As opposed to a “dying breed” of gentlemen (and probably gentlewomen) collectors, I actually think that Gordon and I (through my International Cryptozoology Museum) are two examples of a new growing breed, stimulated by eBay and other avenues, of collectors of such curiosities.
Photographs by Gordon Rutter. Copyright 2006. Permissions granted.
- Similar Phenomena:
If only I could talk the wife into it . . .
OOH! OOH! A CYCLOPS PIGGY! OOH! OOH! IT’S EYE IS BIG! OOH! OOH! I WANNA POKE IT! lol
Loren is correct that he and others are part of a “new growing breed” of collectors. The fundamental reason for this is the near extinction of sideshow, as sideshows commonly exhibited gaffs like this years ago.
I believe the rarest of the rare is the genuine “pickled punk”, of which I’ve seen one. While I was not able to dissect the artifact I saw, I’m convinced it was genuine by the presence of lanugo hair.
My prediction for the future is for gaffs of “alien-human hybrid babies” to be encased in clear epoxy and sold on e-bay…
I’m curious about the painted bowl created from a human skull. The ancient Scythians used to do this. I wonder if it’s from the ancient world, or from a more recent Hannibel?
The skull bowl is Tibetan, so a lot more recent.
Gordon