October 17, 2010

Huffington Post: ICM Is One of Top Ten Cabinets of Curiosities in World


Huffington Post’s Travis Korte has published a list of the “Ten ‘Cabinets of Curiosities’ and Unique Collections from around the World.” On their list is the International Cryptozoology Museum of Portland, Maine.

Here is their list, and what they have to say about the ICM:

1. Teyler’s Museum in Haarlem, Netherlands;
2. Proteus Gowanus, the Observatory, the Morbid Anatomy Library and the Reanimation Library in Brooklyn, New York;
3. International Friendship Exhibition, north of Pyongyang, North Korea;
4. Alchemy Museum, Kutna Hora, Czech Republic;
5. Maison d’Ailleurs (“House of Elsewhere”), Yverdon-les-Bains, north of Lausanne, Switzerland;
6. Elsewhere Collaborative in Greenboro, North Carolina;
7. House of Automata, near Inverness, Scotland;
8. International Cryptozoology Museum, Portland, Maine;
9. Art Yard, Centrailia, Washington State; and
10. Museum of Jurassic Technology, Los Angeles, California.

8. International Cryptozoology Museum
One thread that seems to run through most of these cabinets of curiosities is the presence of a relentlessly devoted curator. Loren Coleman, one of the first ten inductees to the Bigfoot Hall Of Fame, has nothing to prove to us skeptics. In his museum in Portland, Maine, he displays manufactured cryptids, like the “mermaid” P.T. Barnum made out of a monkey torso and a fish tail, along with real specimens like the skull of a saber-toothed tiger. The collection would be incomplete without humor, and visitors are fortunate that Coleman isn’t above showing off his plastic chupacabra masks.
~ Huffington Post, 16 October 2010.

If you would like to vote our museum as #1 at Huffington Post, click your #1 pick at their no. 8 picture, here.

This new honor now joins those received this year, including being named by MSNBC and Concierge.com 1 of 7 of the “Weirdest Museums in the World” in 2010, Yankee Magazine Editor’s 2010 Choice Awards for “Best Quirky Museum,” and the Portland Phoenix’sBest of 2010” reader’s awards for “Best Museum of Portland” and “Best Local Author.”

Patrons’ and supporters’ donations are greatly appreciated, and keep us an alive and ever-growing museum.


Thank you!!

Best of Portland

Come join our First Anniversary celebration on October 31, 2010, from Noon to 5 pm, and dress up as your favorite cryptid for a free book and other treats.

Teeshirts and books will be on sale. Loren Coleman will be happy to autograph your personal, previously owned copies of his books. Some of his books will be for sale in the Green Hand Books and through the ICM book sales table up front!!

Happy Halloween!

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Filed under Breaking News, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoology, Media Appearances, Men in Cryptozoology, Museums, Photos, Pop Culture, Replica Cryptia, Year In Review