10 articles
Antique
Antique: a collectible object valued for age, rarity, quality, or beauty, commonly defined as at least 100 years old, distinct from vintage (20–99 years) and collectibles; covers identification, valuation, market size, and trade law.
Cabinet of curiosities
Cabinet of curiosities (Wunderkammer, cabinet de curiosités, studiolo): Renaissance to 18th-century European private collections of naturalia, artificialia, and scientifica, precursors of modern museums, exemplified by Rudolf II's Prague Kunstkammer and revived in contemporary art and exhibition design.
Cat lady
Cat lady: colloquial stereotype of a single, often older woman devoted to many cats, pejorative as "crazy cat lady". Roots in witchcraft trials, Georgian cartoons, and 1872 press; reclaimed since the 2010s by owners and celebrities like Taylor Swift.
Collecting
Collecting: selecting, gathering, and keeping objects as hobby, investment, or museum foundation. From 16th-century cabinets of curiosities (Naturalia, Artificialia, Scientifica, Exotica) to the British Museum (1753) and today's figurine and collectibles markets.
Collyer brothers
Homer and Langley Collyer, the Collyer brothers, were reclusive Harlem hoarders found dead in 1947 in their booby-trapped 2078 Fifth Avenue brownstone amid over 100 tons of debris; their case named Collyer brothers syndrome and inspired Doctorow's Homer & Langley.
Crossed fingers
Crossed fingers, or crossing fingers, is a hand gesture wishing good luck in the West, or, hidden behind the back, canceling a promise to permit a lie.
Fenn treasure
Fenn treasure: a bronze chest of gold, gems, and artifacts hidden by Santa Fe dealer Forrest Fenn, announced 2010 via a 24-line poem in The Thrill of the Chase; about 350,000 searched, five died, and Jack Stuef found it in Wyoming in June 2020; auctioned 2022 for ~$1.3 million.
List of last words
List of last words: notable final utterances attributed to historical figures, from Socrates and Caesar to the Brontës, Ned Kelly, and Robert E. Lee, sorted by documentation, with reliability notes.
One red paperclip
One red paperclip: Kyle MacDonald's 2005-2006 barter project trading a red paperclip through 14 Craigslist trades up to a house in Kipling, Saskatchewan; Guinness record, book, and teaching legacy.
Trainspotters in the United Kingdom
Trainspotters in the United Kingdom: British hobbyists who record locomotive numbers ('cops') in Ian Allan ABC data books. Began with Fanny Johnson in 1861, peaked in the early 1960s with 250,000 Locospotters' Club members, and fed the railway preservation movement.