Weird Universe Archive
November 2015
November 22, 2015
Wrong Signature Montblanc
In the mid-1990s, Montblanc began selling a limited-edition pen engraved with the signature of Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers — at a price of $750 for a fountain pen or $375 for the ballpoint version. But in 1996 the company admitted it had made a mistake and recalled all the pens. The engraved signature was from the wrong Alexandre Dumas. Not the author of The Three Musketeers, but rather his not-quite-as-famous son, author of "The Lady With the Camellias.'"The mistake was first noticed by the owner of a pen store in Toronto who was displaying a manuscript in his store that included the signature of the senior Dumas and noticed it didn't match the one on the pen. [More info: Eugene Register-Guard - Oct 6, 1996]
At the time, there was a lot of speculation that the wrong-signature pen would quickly rise in value. But no. Checking on eBay, it seems that both versions of the pen go for about the same price (anywhere from $800 to $2000). Probably because too many of the wrong-signature pens were made to make it a rare item.
There's a discussion of both pens on the Fountain Pen Network.
Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 22, 2015 -
Comments (4)
Category: 1990s, Goofs and Screw-ups
Corpse by Mail
Original article here.
Was she found innocent or guilty?
The answer is here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Nov 22, 2015 -
Comments (3)
Category: Death, 1950s, Postal Services
November 21, 2015
Beauty Contest
NSFW! Autoblow Balls Beauty Contest, a beauty contest for balls, is being held with the option to enter online by sending in a picture of your best feature guys. You can also vote at the site, and its quite a sight to vote on!
Posted By: Alex - Sat Nov 21, 2015 -
Comments (9)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Genitals
Atomic Armor for Children, 1951
Designed by Lee Pauwels of Los Angeles to protect his six-year-old son from harmful atomic rays given off by a nuclear explosion. He noted that the suit wouldn't protect his son from the concussion of the blast, "But authorities believe a person could survive the blast at much closer range if he were lying down and wearing the suit. Afterward he'd be able to leave the area that had become contaminated by harmful rays."I wonder if this suit still survives somewhere, stored in someone's attic. Well, it must be around if even atomic rays couldn't harm it. This is the kind of thing that should be on display in the Smithsonian (if I were running it).
The Eugene Guard - Jan 1, 1952
Traverse City Record-Eagle - Dec 26, 1951
Posted By: Alex - Sat Nov 21, 2015 -
Comments (7)
Category: Armageddon and Apocalypses, Fashion, Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, 1950s
Carnivorous Buffaloes
Nothing much about California has really changed since this 1849 warning, has it?
Original article here.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Nov 21, 2015 -
Comments (10)
Category: Death, Hillbillies, Country Bumpkins, Ruralism and Flyover Country, Rants, Warnings, Jeremiads, Prophecies and Cassandra-like Figures, Regionalism, Nineteenth Century
November 20, 2015
The First Do-It-Yourself Novel
Composition No. 1 by Marc Saporta was the first-ever do-it-yourself or interactive novel. It was published in French in 1962, and an English translation followed a year later. The novel came in a box, as a set of looseleaf pages. Readers were instructed to "shuffle them like a deck of cards" before reading, so that chance would decide the order of events in the narrative.
image source: Newsweek - Oct 28, 1963
In 2011, Visual Editions came out with an elegantly boxed new edition of the work (available on Amazon). As well as an iPad version of it that automatically shuffles the pages.
Jonathan Coe, reviewing the new edition for the Guardian in 2011, offered this summary of the book's plot:
The story is a flimsy wisp of a thing, really no more than a jumble of fragments. The setting is Paris during the German occupation. The central character is little glimpsed and never named. He has a mistress called Dagmar, a depressed wife (I think) called Marianne, and a young German au pair whom he rapes during the course of the novel, before being injured in a serious car accident.
Coe noted that the British Library had two copies of the original novel, "both, I'm sorry to say, diligently bound by over-zealous librarians (though at least each copy has the pages bound in a different order)."
Posted By: Alex - Fri Nov 20, 2015 -
Comments (1)
Category: Literature, Books, 1960s
“Life-sized” Alien Facehugger & Egg
Too bad this won't be available until April 2016. Imagine the screams of terror, as depicted, when your lucky first-grader opens this under the Xmas tree.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Nov 20, 2015 -
Comments (5)
Category: Aliens, Death, Toys, Children, Eggs
November 19, 2015
Flying Cows
When I started researching my latest about.com article, I figured that most of the alleged cases of people hit by flying cows were probably urban legends. But now I've concluded that, although there is one famous flying-cow urban legend (involving a Japanese fishing boat being sunk by a cow falling out of the sky), people actually do get hit by flying cows pretty regularly.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 19, 2015 -
Comments (5)
Category: Accidents, Cows, Alex
Push Button Weather
The miraculous Chronotherm! First line of defense!
Sad to contemplate that all these decent-paying job that once provided a good living for so many families have been farmed out to robots and other nations today.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Nov 19, 2015 -
Comments (4)
Category: Technology, Industry, Factories and Manufacturing, Appliances, 1950s
Ketchup Leather
Ketchup Leather is the latest advance in hamburger science. Invented by an L.A. restaurant, it's basically dehydrated ketchup. The idea is that it stops the burger bun from getting soggy.Maybe this will go down well with trendy L.A. types, but I can't see Mr. and Mrs. Average American embracing this.
More info at Tech Insider.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 19, 2015 -
Comments (12)
Category: Food
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
