Community members display spooky sides through oddity collections

At an oddities and curiosities event in Austin, Andrea Hernandez, owner of Triple Six Coffee Social, bought her first oddity, a baby pig with a real heart on it. Now for over a decade, Hernandez has collected about 20 oddities.

“I collect a lot of mummified remains of animals, and it took me a while because, coming from a Hispanic background you grow up kind of being like, no stay away from it,” Hernandez said. “And then, about 15 years ago, I told myself, ‘I love this, stop holding back.’ So, I just got extra creepy… I just embraced it.”

Oddities consist of things like strange antiques, bones, taxidermy or preserved animal remains and creative work. Hernandez’s favorite type of oddity to collect is mummified remains of animals.

Hernandez started collecting oddities because she believes there is beauty in death. She was always fascinated with the history of old post-mortem photos and the way autopsies used to be conducted leading to her interest in collecting oddities.

“This might sound morbid, but I think there’s a beauty to death,” Reyes said. “I went to school to be a nurse, and I started off as a patient tech… so after a patient died… I would go in there and wash them. That was like, what they still do in hospitals [is] what they used to do[for] post-mortem photos, but it’s just the whole beauty to death and respecting the body and realizing that that was a life at one point.”

Sydney Reyes, founder of Para-chicks Paranormal, began collecting oddities three years ago after her friend, who is a paranormal investigator, acquired some haunted dolls while working on a case.

“He gave me a call, and he was like, ‘Hey, do you want a doll?’ I was like, ‘Sure.’ He was like, ‘It’s a haunted doll’ and I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ So, we met up… and I originally was only going to get Sarah… and right next to her was Esme, so I told him I [needed] both,” Reyes said.

Reyes’ oddities consist of haunted dolls, a haunted mirror and haunted toys. She has a total of six haunted dolls. Four of the dolls live inside her home and the other two are displayed in the haunted museum at Triple Six Coffee Social. Esme is her favorite doll.

“Esme is my favorite because I’ve come into contact with so many skeptics that are like, ‘oh, there’s no such thing as a haunted doll, there’s no such thing as a haunted object,’” Reyes said. “There’s been three instances where I’ve proven those skeptics wrong.”

Louis Sypher, owner of The Black Throne oddities and gothic decor, collected oddities for 15 years. Belton, the town he grew up in, influenced his interest in them.

“When I was in my teens, I was growing up around an old country town where all we had were antique stores and stuff like that,” Sypher said. “So, I’d find scythes and cool little medical oddities in there.”

Although most of his collecting began in his teens, growing up in the country fostered his interest in oddities as a child.

“When I was a kid, I grew up in the country and I would always come across little cow skulls, goat skulls, deer bones and what not,” Sypher said. “So, I guess that’s where I first started out doing it all and it just grew from there.”

The art of collecting comes naturally to Sypher. His favorite type of oddities to collect are antiques from funeral tools, including caskets, embalming tools and headstones.

“I have collected a few full size and child size caskets, all vintage and antique, and those have been some of my favorites,” Sypher said.

Sypher said the number of oddities he’s collected would be too much to count.

“It’s a big number, I couldn’t tell you exactly,” Sypher said. “The collection has overcome my life.”