January 17, 2013
Visitors, like you, to Portland, Maine’s International Cryptozoology Museum expect to find Native (indigenous) art. You will when you visit.
But why, too, are seemingly modern “toys” here?
Our 100 years assembly includes Western + Eastern cultural examples of cryptids; some people have called them “toys.”
Before we existed, when they were old and used, such items were discarded and unstudied.
One of the Museum missions is to preserve the significant short-term items reflecting local cryptids, whether of Kappas, Bigfoot, Yeti, Nessie, Chupacabras, or lesser-known cryptids, creatures, and monsters, if you will.
Such items may have been produced for only one event or for a few years as tourist souvenirs.
They are hardly “toys” to cryptozoologists, but are moments in cryptozoology history saved from tomorrow’s dumpsters.
International Cryptozoology Museum’s holdings today make for a unique, one-of-a-kind, rare collection. If you want background on any item, you may ask the docent, director, or assistant director who will greet you when you enter.
Please remember, we are a relatively new museum, ten years old, only became a nonprofit in 2011, and still in need of growth. We have received major recognition and awards for our museum is acknowledged as well-organized and helpfully-curated. We want to do more, needless to say.
With donations for new display cases and a larger space in our near future, we shall be individually displaying and labeling all items separately in the next phase of the museum’s development. Needless to say, that takes time. Your patience, critiques, praise, and donations (of artifacts or funding) to achieve this goal are appreciated. Thank you.
Simply click on the following button to give $5, $10, $50, $100, whatever you can send…
You may directly send a check or money order if in the USA, or, if outside the USA, an international postal money order written to:
Please send vintage artifacts, cryptid items, “cryptozoology toys,” other donations, and funding to the International Cryptozoology Museum, 11 Avon Street, Portland, Maine 04101.
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, Museums, Pop Culture, Replica Cryptia