Description

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In this spellbinding and entertaining memoir, Regina and Ryan Cohn, founders of Oddities Flea Market, take us on a fascinating and specially curated tour of their most macabre and mysterious objects, art, and artifacts, sharing their incredible history and stories.

Enter at your own risk …

A taxidermied monkey named Mr. Peepers. A rare collection of anatomical wax figures for sale in Munich. A Tibetan Kapala skull decorated with bits of coral. Two Charlie McCarthy dolls that may (or may not) be haunted. The incredible memento mori collection of Richard Harris. An actual witch’s door. That’s all just for starters. 

Welcome to a world of oddities curated by Regina and Ryan Cohn, trendsetters and tastemakers who have reinvented what the artifact collectors market looks like. Together, they are the founders of Oddities Flea Market, artfully curating a selection of the best artists and collectors at several events across the U.S. throughout the year, with an eye towards expanding globally. In The Witch’s Door, Ryan, who starred in the reality television show Oddities, and Regina, who comes from the world of fashion, give us a rare peek behind the curtain into the business of collecting the strange and unusual and the cast of eccentric characters they meet along the way.

Packed with jaw-dropping photographs and unbelievable-but-true stories, The Witch’s Door is a rare combination of visual and narrative entertainment. In these pages, Ryan and Regina take readers all over the world, from Brooklyn to Bavaria, giving them the inside scoop on how they purchase artifacts to sell and those they want to keep. Perfect for fans of Oddities, Atlas Obscura, and Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, this collectible book makes a delightfully lurid gift or self-purchase for those happily inclined toward the dark side.

About the Author

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Ryan Matthew Cohn is an artist, curator, rare art collector, and cofounder of the Oddities Flea Market. His artwork has been exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design, Armour-Stiner Octagon House, Copro Gallery, Last Rites Gallery, Morbid Anatomy Museum, Roq La Rue Gallery, and more. 

Regina M. Cohn is the cofounder and producer of the Oddities Flea Market, a traveling high-end art market. Under her leadership, the Oddities Flea Market expanded from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Manhattan, and beyond.

Ryan and Regina live in Connecticut with their cat, three dogs, and growing collection of rare art, oddities, and other ephemera. The Witch’s Door is their first book.

Jim Ruland is the LA Times bestselling author of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, which was named a best book of 2022 by Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. He is also the co-author of Do What You Want with Bad Religion and My Damage with Keith Morris. In addition to being a columnist for Razorcake fanzine and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times, he is the author of the novels Make It Stop and Forest of Fortune and the short story collection Big Lonesome. 

Praise For…

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“America’s first family of the macabre presents not just the stories of arcane objects, but of the people who created them, nurtured them, and loved them. We meet not just Ryan and Regina, but Nick the police sergeant, the mysterious Max Wax, creepy Carla Coffin, and a whole cast of others who have squirreled away priceless objects. The Witch’s Door is as much a character study as is it is a book about oddities—and that is what makes it essential reading.”

—Paul Koudinaris, author The Empire of Death and Heavenly Bodies

??“OBSESSED with this peek behind the black velvet curtain of how Ryan and Regina built their uniquely jaw-dropping collection of gothic, chic, mind-blowing oddities. I felt like I was there with them as they traveled the world to meet with passionate art dealers, crazed collectors, and eccentrically badass weirdos. This is must-read for anyone interested in curios and strange, alluring objects. The Witch’s Door is a macabre portal that reminds us that if we live among death, we live life the fullest even more.”

—Jill Kargman, New York Times bestselling author

 

“This is a delightfully eccentric tour of the authors’ offbeat world of collecting. It’s a powerful reminder of the enthralling stories that objects have to tell us about ourselves, and of the adventures they can engender in seeking them out.”

—Lindsey Fitzharris, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Butchering Art and The Facemaker

 

“Ryan and Regina painstakingly curate the absolute weirdest, coolest, most unconventionally beautiful things a brain could imagine. You will love this compilation of weird, wonderful ephemera as it is an odd window into two of my favorite souls.

—Steve Burns