72. A shirt of mail wore by the knights templars
A Catalogue of the Rarities, to be Seen at Don Saltero's Coffee-house: In Chelsea
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In 1695, a coffee house by the name of ‘Don Saltero’s’ opened in Chelsea, London which drew crowds from far and wide not for its refreshments, but for the hundreds of intriguing objects and oddities that lined its walls, shelves and ceiling: ‘cabinets of curiosities’ filled with souvenirs from all corners of the globe that were sure to catch the attention of all who entered, collected as they were by the establishment’s owner, James Salter. On entering Don Saltero’s, visitors were handed a copy of A Catalogue of the Rarities, to be Seen at Don Saltero's Coffee-house: In Chelsea, a guide book of which 40 editions were printed over the years, all containing magnificent lists of objects such as this one.
1. A Soland goose from the north of Scotland
2. A fine large hawk
3. A piece of the sugar cane, 8 feet long
4. A curious hydrometer, or weather gage
5. The bill and craw of a pelican
6. A curious skin of a snake, six feet and a half long
7. The claws of a lobster of a surprising largeness
8. A sea fan
9. Sea weeds
10. A maucauco from the East-Indies
11. The foal of a Zebra African wild ass
12. The skeleton of a cat
13. A Chinese idol
14. The pizzle of a whale
15. The head and paws of a Greenland bear
16. A sheet of paper made of silk, 12 feet long, 4 feet and a half wide, from China
17. A string of large Romish beads
18. A petrifies child
19. A Guiney deer
20. A wooden shoe that was put under the speaker’s chair in the reign of K. James II
21. The King of Widdaw’s staff
22. The ear of an elephant
23. Pipes found in Gloucester
24. A print of the fly cap monkey
25. Ditto of a fine lizard, coloured from the life
26. Ditto of the dead warrant for the beheading of King Charles the First
27. Ditto of the Brasilian pye, or toucan, coloured from life
29. A sea horse’s pizzle, of which cramp rings are made
30. A large otter
31. A surprising horn of an urus, or buffaloe
31. The cobler’s awl, plover
32. A fine horned owl
33. A Chinese pheasant
34. Chinese instrument of wind music made of reeds
34. Two fine mussel shells, 2 foot long, from Portmahon
35. The rhinoceros’s horn
36. The model of a mill with an overshot wheel, which works with sand (as the large ones do by water) most curiously contrived, and made in a bottle: the stopper of the bottle is most wonderfully contrived in being fastened in the inside of the bottle with cross bars and spring bolts, with various things hanging to each end of every bolt, and yet so tight as not to admit of one grain of sand to escape.Â
37. The horns of a West-India stag
38. A Spanish apparatus, or belt to prevent cuckoldom, commonly called a Spanish padlock
39. A Romish bishop’s crosier
40. The horn of a sea unicorn, 7 foot and a half long
41. A friar’s discipline
42. A Staffordshire almanack, in use when the Danes were in England
43. A coffin of slate for a friar’s bones, finely carved all over
44. A joint of the back bone of a whale
45. An iron bolt, shot red-hot at fort William by the rebels, 1745
46. The paws of a Russian bear
47. A large star fish
48. The paws of a seal
49. A piece of the keel of a ship eat by the worms
50. The head of a manatee, or sea-cow
51. The lance of Tow-How Sham, king of the Darien Indians, with which he killed six Spaniards, and took a tooth out of each head, and put it in his spear as a trophy of victory
52. The skin of a snake, ten feet and a half long, an excellent hydrometer
53. The foot of an elk
54. The head and tusks of a moss or sea lion
55. The head of a roe-buck from Scotland
56. The fin of a shark
57. A chopchin with which the Chinese cut their gold sympum, or Chinese board
58. A soull cap found in the hat of a French officer, when taken at the battle of Dettingen
58. The grinder of an elephant
59. The tooth of a whale
60. Bastinadoe from China
61. An Indian sword of war, always left in the field of battle by the conqueror
62. An Indian leaf of the tree palmeta, used by the natives as a fan
63. An almanack for a blind manÂ
64. A Moco fan
65. The head and horns of an antelope
66. The belt and pouches, shoe, and other ornaments of Tow How-Sham, king of the Darien Indians
67. A pair of Tartar lady’s shoes
68. The coronation-shoes of King William III
69. A pair of Tripoly stockings
70. A Turkish quiver for arrows
71. A pair of maucasons or shoes from Hudson’s Bay
72. A shirt of mail wore by the knights templars
73. A Chinese stocking
74. Queen Elizabeth’s stirrup
75. A Chinese boot
76. The jaws of a shark with 280 teeth
77. A scaly coat of mail
78. A pair of Turkish women’s shoes
79. A pair of Chinese women’s shoes
80. Q. Catherine’s wedding shoes, q. of Charles II
81. A pair of Turkish men’s shoes
82. A Turkish slipper
83. A pair of Chinese men’s shoes
84. A pair of Spanish lady’s shoes
85. A pair of brashalls to play at ballon, a game used in Italy
86. A curious wooden fan
87. A curious model of a church
88. A print of the maucauco, with some weeds from the gulph of Florida
89. The Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, the ten Commandments, the prayers for the king and the royal family, and the 21st psalm; all written in the bust of king George
90. A very curious triform picture of King Charles I and his two sons
91. A dried cat
92. A Turkish bow
93. The root of a tree in the shape of a hog
94. The head of a badger
95. The saw of a saw fish
96. King Henry the Eighth’s coat of mail
97. A pair of gauntlets
98. Knives of the Cannibal Indians
99. An Indian bow and arrows
100. Two javelins
101. A Negro boy’s cap made of rats skins
102. Snow shoes
103. A Chinese waistcoat, to prevent sweating
104. A Scots Highlander’s target
105. A coat made of the bark of a tree
106. A whip from Archangel
107. A Mailay’s hat
108. Queen Elizabeth’s chambermaid’s hat
109. The target of Tee-Yee-Neen-Ho-Ga-Row, Indian emperor of the Six Nations
110. Queen Elizabeth’s work-basket
111. A Bohemian hat
112. A curious print, that changes, viz. from a man to a woman
113. A moving picture of Hudibras and the conjurer
114. Ditto of the bottle-conjurer
115. Ditto of a bashful widow
116. Two young tarapins, or land turtles
117. Two fine large ostrich-eggs
118. The shell sun fish
119. The egg of an ostrich, curiously carved
120. The star-fish
121. A bucaneer’s staff
122. A Barbary spur
123. King Henry the Eighth’s spurs
124. A print of the scarlet manakin from Surinam, coloured from life
125. Two Madagascar lances
126. An Indian bow
127. A Turkish pistol
128. A pistol with four barrels, taken from the French at the siege of Namur
129. Four Indian arrows, extraordinarily bearded
130. Two ancient broad arrows of Robin Hood
131. Two small poisoned arrows with bearded points
132. Oliver Cromwell’s broad sword
133. A Spanish spadoe
134. King James’s coronation sword
135. King William’s ditto
136. A Scots dusk
137. Two poisoned daggers of great antiquity
138. A Mallay’s Creese
139. A travelling clock, which is thirty-six hours going down. N. B. In common clocks the hand goes round, and the dial keeps its place; but in this the dial goes around and the hand keeps its direction
140. A spur of state from Mexico, taken in the Acapulco ship by admiral Anson
141. The flaming sword of William the Conqueror
142. A print of the Zebra, or African wild ass, coloured from life
143. A starved cat found between the walls of Westminster-abbey when repairing
144. The horns of an antelope
145. A fine large tarapin, or land-turtle
146. An antique chissel
147. A fine East-India bow and arrows, the arrows headed with poison, to shoot birds with
148. An Indian tomohawk, taken in the field of battle before Quebec
149. Fine lace imitated in paper
150. The head of the rhinoceros bird
151. The head of the spatula bird
152. The tooth of a sea-horse
These lists could easily make great writing prompts...