Taxidermy is a curious thing to me.
I grew up as an outdoorsman in a small town in southwestern Colorado. Later, life carried me to Florida’s Gulf Coast, where I spent a lot of time fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. One day, I would like my ashes scattered over those waters.
Until then, I will keep popping in and out of thrift stores.
Which brings me back to taxidermy.
Despite all those years spent outdoors, I never felt the need to preserve an animal I caught or hunted for food. I never wanted to recreate the moment so I could relive it every time I walked into some grand trophy room.
My current trophy room is filled with treasures from thrift stores anyway.
So what does any of this have to do with taxidermy?
Because the strangest thing I have ever encountered in a thrift store was not simply taxidermy.
It was bad taxidermy.
A talented taxidermist can create an astonishingly realistic representation of an animal. A taxidermist without those skills can take one of nature’s beautiful creatures and transform it into something that appears to have crawled out of the darkest corner of an unexplored forest.
Or perhaps risen from the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Bad taxidermy is remarkable in the truest sense of the word. It inspires awe, although perhaps not the kind its creator intended. The eyes stare in different directions. The expression suggests unfinished business. The proportions no longer obey the laws of nature.
And every once in a while, if you are lucky, you encounter one of these magnificent disasters sitting quietly on a thrift store shelf.
That is one of the great pleasures of thrifting.
You do not have to buy everything you find. Sometimes the entertainment comes from discovering something so unusual that you stop, stare, take a photo, and spend the rest of the day trying to decide what animal it was originally supposed to be.
In this week’s photo, Norwegian soccer star Erling Haaland appears to have discovered some particularly impressive trash-panda taxidermy while visiting Texas.
At least, I think it is a raccoon.
Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.
That applies to clothing, furniture, collectibles, household goods, and apparently animals whose facial expressions have been permanently rearranged by an ambitious amateur.
Some people would see a horrifying piece of taxidermy.
Someone else might see the perfect centerpiece for the living room.
That is the fun of secondhand shopping. Every object is waiting for the person who understands it, appreciates it, or is at least willing to give it a home where it can frighten future generations.
There is no bad taxidermy, but check our whimsical items for something fun...or to make fun of.
Happy thrifting!
Michael T.
Second Half Supply Co.
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From the Hunt
The Hunt Is Bigger Than the Thrift Store
Thrifting does not have to begin and end inside a thrift store.
Garage sales, estate sales, flea markets, church sales, and neighborhood sales are all part of the same secondhand universe. Each one offers the possibility of finding something useful, valuable, nostalgic, or wonderfully bizarre.
I especially enjoy yard and estate sales because the items often tell a story together.
You can walk through a collection of clothing, furniture, books, tools, decorations, and household goods and begin imagining the life that surrounded them.
Maybe there are souvenirs from decades of family vacations.
Perhaps there is a garage full of tools that belonged to someone who repaired everything instead of replacing it.
Sometimes there is a closet full of clothing that traces an entire life through changing styles, careers, hobbies, and sizes.
And sometimes there is a mangy piece of taxidermy that looks like a fox.
Or a cat.
Or possibly a chupacabra.
I love a good story, even when I have to invent half of it myself.
That is part of the hunt.
The best secondhand finds do not simply occupy space. They make us wonder where they came from, who owned them, and how on earth they ended up sitting on a folding table with a five-dollar sticker attached.
You do not always have to bring the item home.
Sometimes the story is the treasure.