It was, says Edward Meyer, the most exciting time of his life. In November
1989 he was dispatched from his office in Toronto to Berlin as ordinary
Germans rose up and tore the wall down. Meyer was, naturally, excited at the
triumph of democracy and the humbling of the evil empire. But what was most
thrilling was the chance to buy up a vast souvenir chunk of Berlin Wall.
Meyer is in charge of collections for the global chain of “odditoriums” run by
Ripley's Believe It Or Not. He managed to haggle his way to a 160ft length
of concrete (and a suitcase full of off-cuts for his friends). “It was quite
cheap. I bought it from the military but I don't know if they were
authorised to sell. It was the cranes and shipping that cost a fortune - you
had to be quick, though; the wall was pretty much all gone by 1990.”
You will see a lugubrious 10ft chunk of his haul, weighing 1.4 tonnes, in one
of the 22 galleries of the shortly-to-open Ripley's in the Trocadero,
Central London. But if you've come here hoping to learn something about the
collapse of the great socialist experiment in Eastern Europe, you're in the
wrong place. Opposite is a 15ft x 10ft image of Ray Charles made by a
Seattle student from 8,000 Post-it notes. Next door is a stuffed five-legged
cow. In the other direction you'll encounter Diana, Princess of Wales in a
picture made entirely of laundry lint, and beyond that a trio of Jivaro
Indian shrunken heads spotlit like Cartier jewels. Here education comes a
distant second to entertainment.
For those unaware of the Believe It Or Not phenomenon, Robert Ripley was a US
newspaper cartoonist-turned-collector who travelled the world in the 1920s
and 1930s in search of the bizarre. He died in 1949 but his spirit lives on
in a global empire of the strange that includes 30-odd odditoriums. There is
already a smaller Believe It Or Not in Blackpool; one has come and gone in
Great Yarmouth; but the 500 exhibits stuffed into prime tourist-trap London
is the company's most sustained assault on the British leisure pound. The
result is a cross between a freak show, a seaside wax museum and Tate Modern
(a zebra in formaldehyde would fit nicely). This is the 16th-century
“cabinet of curiosities” dragged up to date.
So how has Ripley's acquired its stash? Some of the exhibits were much easier
to obtain than others, Meyer says. The thoroughly creepy shrunken heads - a
Ripley's favourite - were made by the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador. Their
significance was at first ceremonial, but later they were made for the
tourist trade that sprung up after the lost city of Machu Picchu was
rediscovered in 1911.
“Their creation was outlawed before the Second World War but it went on into
the 1950s,” Meyer says. “At first they used their enemies but later it was
people who were just in the wrong place. We've seen white people, a Chinese
sailor.
“Ripley's has 114 in total and we're putting three good ones on show in
London. The most ornamented is worth about $250,000.” The heads have strings
in the mouth to keep the soul in - “except the females because it was
believed women had no soul.”
Rather cheaper, and another Ripley's signature item, is the two-headed cow.
“We have about 80 of them,” says Meyer. “A farmer will call me when one
appears - they are usually still-born - and think they're worth a million
dollars. In fact they're only worth a few hundred. I see three or four a
year.
“In London we also have a stuffed five-legged cow, which lived with a leg
growing out of its back for 16 years. A farmer in Wisconsin, Paul Springer,
adopts such animals. He will nurture them after the mother has rejected
them. We like to buy from him.”
And then there are the human grotesques. Ripley's is delighted to have an
authentically British record-holder with its bust of Thomas Wedders. He was
a Yorkshireman who lived in the 1700s and his 7in nose is claimed to be the
longest in history. Not surprisingly, he made his living in circuses. “This
is a wax likeness made in our workshops based on a sketch that Robert Ripley
did from a contemporary sketch.”
In this same gallery, continuing the British theme - not far from one of Henry
VIII's old shoes - is a royal tableau peopled with ants. “We try to display
art that you can't see anywhere else,” Meyer says. “This is a 2in high, 10in
wide royal scene done with about 50 ants that, I think, have been varnished.
It's a triptych, if you will, of English scenes - Charles and Diana's
wedding, a court scene and Diana's funeral. The ants have faces painted on
them and posed as if human. It's been done by a Mexican artist called
Enrique Ramos, who is well represented at Ripley's. He paints with a single
hairbrush while wearing trifocals.”
And, like every modern visitor attraction, Ripley's has its interactive
features. Thus women visitors, and, who knows, men, too, will have a chance
to try on an antique chastity belt. “There will be four in London, ranging
from the 16th to the 18th century,” Meyer says. “The early ones were
decorated, one has flowers, and were designed to save a woman's virtue. But
later they become punishment devices, a little nastier with jagged edges.”
Meyer says such an item can't be shown in conservative places such as
Tennessee. There are other taboos: “In parts of the Middle East you can't
display body parts - so no shrunken heads in Kuwait.”
Decidedly less interactive is one of the company's most valuable purchases -
an antique iron maiden. Ripley's has two, reputed to date from the 1500s.
Meyer says: “They are both spectacular; very precisely engineered. The one
in London was bought in 1928 in Germany and I recently bought one in Munich
for the New York museum. The bidding was long and frantic and I ended up
paying 50 times what I expected. I was competing against a French-speaking
man who has a collection in Morocco. He turns up at all these sales and I
was determined to beat him. He got all the best items when there was a
Christie's auction of Albert Pierrepoint's effects .”
So there you have it: treasure trove or tat? You decide. The Trocadero has
seen surefire moneyspinners come and go. Maybe this temple of weird is what
the site has been waiting for, wonky cows and all.
Ripley's Believe It Or Not,
1 Piccadilly Circus, London W1 (www.ripleys.com), opens Aug 20. Adults £17.95;
children
£13.95
