# What's the worst museum you've ever been to? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 11, 2025, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881 "2025-10-11T16:20:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/201 "2025-10-22T22:46:09Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > But there was one room which held stuff that the museum seriously presented as relics from Biblical and Quranic figures. “Wow, that nondescript stick is the very same one Moses used to part the Red Sea? Cool!” Made me question the accuracy of everything else there. Maybe they were going for the same effect as L.A.’s [Museum of Jurassic Technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Jurassic_Technology). (which assuredly does **not** belong in this thread.) ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/202 "2025-10-23T00:07:46Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > > [@hogarth](#): > > > > I went to a palace museum in Vienna where they had a piece of the True Cross and a unicorn horn. > > Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago also has a piece. So does every freakin’ church in Latin America…just a hop, skip, and a jump from Golgotha. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/203 "2025-10-23T07:58:42Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > So does every freakin’ church in Latin America… I’m not sure if I made this up or I heard it somewhere else, but there are enough pieces of the True Cross out there to build the log cabin Abe Lincoln was born in. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/204 "2025-10-23T14:54:46Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > I went to a palace museum in Vienna where they had a piece of the True Cross and a unicorn horn. I’m just picturing the ancient conman who sold the king these things. “Oh yes, i assure you they are real! Would I lie?” Long dead and forgotten, but his legacy lives on! > [@Smapti](#): > > but there are enough pieces of the True Cross out there to build the log cabin Abe Lincoln was born in. Of course those are all fake, I have the ENTIRE True Cross. I got it from a guy. He swore it was gen-u-ine. And he wouldn’t lie! ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/205 "2025-10-23T15:33:08Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I’m just picturing the ancient conman who sold the king these things. “Oh yes, i assure you they are real! Would I lie?” Long dead and forgotten, but his legacy lives on! Most “unicorn horns” sold in the middle ages and Renaissance actually were tusks of narwhals. Still exotic and hard to get your hands on in central Europe, but not exactly the real thing or critter. ETA: and regarding pieces of the True Cross: I hadn’t heard the saying about Lincoln’s log cabin @Smapti posted, but that putting together all those pieces kept in Catholic churches around the world, you could build a whole forest of True Crosses. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/206 "2025-10-23T17:15:21Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I hadn’t heard the saying about Lincoln’s log cabin @Smapti posted, but that putting together all those pieces kept in Catholic churches around the world, you could build a whole forest of True Crosses. It’s like the loaves and fishes! ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/207 "2025-10-23T17:27:57Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago also has a piece. Hm, I just checked the museum website and it does say that, not even throwing in a “reputed to be” clause. But apparently this particular splinter was given to Ambassador Clare Booth Luce by the Pope, so it must be…well, total bullshit anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2025, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/208 "2025-10-24T02:34:57Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > > > Grants now has this. > > I liked that one a lot. It did a real nice job of showing what underground mining was like. Without the fear of sudden irreversible death. > > I enjoyed the nextdoor Cibola County History Museum, too. Small, but nice. I was just in Grants earlier this month. Kind of sad now that I missed out…. That’s what I get for being a shut-in. (I was there visiting the coal mines.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/209 "2025-10-28T12:17:52Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > No matter what your bad museum is, is it “inspired two comedy specials” bad? > > [Serpentarium Part 1](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=984356705249276) > > [Serpentarium Part 2](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2511718315819698) > > And yes, I’ve been there–and it’s worse than these bits make it sound. I can’t get on my computer. Is this about the Miami Serpentarium? I was at the Miami Serpentarium in its heyday, back in the 1960s. It was pretty good museum at the time – filled with poisonous snakes and run by Dr. William Haast. It closed in 1984, after which he opened a non-tourist center in Punta Gorda, Florida to continue production of venom and antivenin. Haast put on a heluva show. He’d take a king cobra our of its tank and put it in grass circle, surrounded by tourists (with absolutely no protective walls between the tourists and this live, venomous snake), then he would “charm” the cobra, quickly grab it by the neck, and plunge its fangs through a rubber sheet stretched over a flask and “milk” out the venom. Hard to believe that he could get away with a show like that. I’m sure you couldn’t today. Haast was a “mithridatist” – he injected himself with small doses of snake venom to make himself immune to its effects. His blood was used as a cure for snakebite victims (presumably those with compatible blood types). I was fascinated, and wrote to him asking advice on keeping snakes (I kept non-poisonous garter snakes.) He actually replied. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/210 "2025-10-28T12:22:39Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I can’t get on my computer. Is this about the Miami Serpentarium? Nope–it’s the one that was in Wilmington, NC. Dark, stinky, tiny cages, miserable reptiles, and a lobby full of Dr. Bronner-level free-association rants covering all the walls, except they were about chemtrails and the gummint. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-museum-youve-ever-been-to/1023881/211 "2025-10-28T12:24:39Z")
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