Carson Electric Kit

For some antiquers and collectors, the more disturbing the find, the better. There is a market for antique funerary items, post mortem photographs, vampire kits, electric chairs and medical oddities. Some of these items fetch huge sums due their rarity and the competition to buy them. As shown by TV shows like Discovery channel's, Oddities, which features the daily workings of New York antique shop, Obscura, the interest and market for these items is ever increasing.

Electric Chairs on the Market

In 2001, Sarasota, Florida resident, Eddie Clawson purchased a circa 1896 electric chair from an antique dealer in north Florida. The chair sat in Clawson's home for a decade, but the failing economy forced him to resell it. When Treasure Hunter's Roadshow rolled into Tampa in March, 2011, he packed the chair into the back of his truck and sold it at the show for an undisclosed amount. David Morgan, advertising director for the Treasure Hunters Roadshow believes the chair was originally made in Ohio, circa 1896.

Owning a piece of execution history isn't just a 21st century compulsion. For centuries, the hangmen of London's Tyburn made a tidy income selling bits of the rope used to hang the poor souls who died on the "Deadly Nevergreen."