Japan has the right idea, at least for Aquariums.
The Sumida Aquarium at Tokyo Skytree has a stuffed animal version of almost every creature living there, from worms to whale sharks. If you think it’s cute, so do they.
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
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They should keep a running tally of how much money each creature has raised for the museum. Gamify that shit. If you really like the tiger shark but it's somehow losing to the clownfish (seriously what's wrong with these people?! Tiger sharks are so much cooler, ugh!), you're going to be more likely to buy one just to rep for your team.
Get this person an Applied Psychology degree, a copy of "Nudge" by Richard H. Thaler, and a Marketing Executive job position stat!
I'm only half joking there, you could write a whole thesis titled "Increasing Merchandise Sales through Gamification" where different game mechanics, merch item types, and price points could be measured against profit increases to determine the optimal RRP for a gamified merch item to have a meaningful impact on revenue. That could actually help culturally valuable places like museums who survive off grants, donations, and the gift shop.
They have a lot of different sashimi too!
Ah yes, the other way Japanese appreciate fish. ;)
The Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg TN is similar, the kids always love it.
Always wild to me how good that place is while being in an otherwise kind of random mountain tourist town.
It really is a treasure aint it? I live about 2hrs drive from there, we try to take the kids every year or so.
Also helps that Dollywood is right there. I grew up near Orlando so when I moved here ~20 years ago I never expected to enjoy a theme park and an aquarium more than the ones I grew up with, but here we are.
I've never been! I always assumed it would be kinda trash, to be honest. I grew up coastal, and our aquariums were awesome. I'll have to check them out if a Floridian thinks a mountain aquarium is worth the visit. Haha
In America too. Every aquarium I go to we end up buying a stuffed version of our favorite animal we saw.
Smithsonian has thousands of 3D models available for free: https://3d.si.edu/
Why is this not the top comment? Fuck, if this is what government was, instead of armed thugs that fucking murder people and do imperialism and lock people in cages so we have slaves to fight fires because we spent the entire budget on men with guns, I'd be asking how to pay extra taxes.
They're very cool but ELIacompleteidiot how one would turn, say, a Blue and White ceramic incense burner from a picture on my phone into something on my shelf?
With a 3d printer and some paint
Wait, I gotta paint it myself? I'd have better luck molding the clay from scratch freehand than getting the painting right.
Bill Wurtz taught me to spell “majapahit.”
I bought a stuffed penguin from the Biodome in Montreal because of their penguin exhibit.
Oh man I went there for a school trip 20 years ago. The only thing I remember is the penguins and how they were sliding down the hill on their tummies. So fucking cute.
I mean, these penguins ARE cute
I once met someone who was pursuing a dual-major in museum sciences and marketing. She basically wanted to do things like this, like run museum gift shops and research which replicas people might want—like she wanted to sell the actual model of golf club that was used on the moon, or whatever. I thought it was brilliant! No idea if she ever got the job she wanted.
So one day there was this interactive display where museum staff was showing off things like Roman gladiator helmets and weapons. They were just on the table as the staff was giving a little speech. I didn’t think they were anything but replicas, why would you have the real shit out like that? My teenage brain decided to put on the gladiator helmet and the staff lady saw me and turned pale before rushing to grab gloves and take it off my head. It was apparently not a replica.
I don’t know if I’m haunted by the spirit of a Roman gladiator now, but it’s pretty cool I got to wear a 2k year old helmet for a second
I've always wondered how the fit is on those and how they were to actually wear in battle! I always imagined it to be a nuisance and get in the way of a melee battle. What did you think of the fit?
They’re big and hollow inside. They would wear head wraps and armour that would kind of help it fit. But visibility is ridiculous. The one I tried I couldn’t see shit to the sides and barely through the front. It was similar to this one
Even replica books are expensive as fuck. I remember wanting to see if it was possible to get a modern made copy of medieval manuscripts, and you can; but they are still like tens of thousands of dollars. 😩
They gotta pay those medieval manuscript licensing fees
You can probably get coffee table book representations of some books. I have a Canterbury Tales and Mallory’s Le Mort d’Arthur. Not really medieval, but they’re done up as such.
Making a book even close to the style of medieval manuscripts is an incredible amount of hand printing and artwork. Some are absolutely beautiful, and a cost of tens of thousands is not unreasonable for a year or more of an artist’s effort.
I mean, I did expect to have a normal printed copy, not an original hand-copied copy. Like sure, it would likely need to be copied by hand from the original if it's old and kinda messed up, but then that first copy could be machine printed in mass quantities. They apparently don't do that 🤷♂️
https://archive.org/details/folkscanomy_medieval?sort=date
I'm sure you can find a print shop who would print PDFs from the internet archive. It'd be a cheap replacement though, not a replica.
That would be an awesome piggy bank, but British Museum in particular is doing pretty well on this front compared to many other museums, their souvenir shops have at least some. Not enough for me to be completely satisfied, but enough not to be completely disappointed, which is pretty good, relatively speaking.
The MOMA has a lot of artist-created or inspired stuff in their gift shop, just in case you needed some N-dimensional placemats or something for your tablescape.
A lot of museums have such ("toy") replicas or other merch stuff themed with the respective topic.
It's just more accurate replicas that are hard to come by.
Stuff like that is pretty common in museum shops here in Sweden, and I'm sure many other countries too. It's very overpriced though, but that's expected for shops like that, and I think that's fine as long as it helps the museum.
It's not the same one, but here's a different Majapahit Piggy Bank that you can print: https://makerworld.com/en/models/174272-piggy-bank-14th-15th-century-java-majapahit-dynast#profileId-191594 (probably remixed from https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/198016-piggy-bank-14bfd106baf14d62aebf6eafbe25b3c3 but I'm not sure)
Somewhat similar but I always thought it'd be cool for military museums to partner with canning companies and whatnot to make period accurate ration kits. Maybe sell period accurate weaponry made in traditional styles to boost sales, I'd buy a cap and ball revolver from Calico Ghost Town, not quite a museum but close enough also fun fact Calico was restored by Mr Knots of Knots berry farm fame.
I got a charm bracelet made with replica Roman coins at a museum gift shop once. It was for a Pompeii exhibit.
3d print all the things lol
There was an art museum that I went to, I think in Cologne that had prints of basically all the paintings. If you really liked one, you could get a high quality print, photo, postcard, etc.
You wouldn't steal an ancient artifact. O nvm, they must have a different reason.