Know Before You Go
Between Belvedere and Cole in the Upper Haight.
San Francisco, California
Loved to Death
This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.
For two seasons, the Science Channel reality TV show Oddities: San Francisco followed shop owner Audra Kunkle as she helped an organizer of Victorian-cemetery tea parties find a nose-related gift and searched for the perfect prop for identical twins’ robot-music performances.
While the show has ended, the shop, Loved to Death, still offers curious antiques, jewelry, and artwork at its Haight-Ashbury location.
The shop is full of memento mori and items with a goth or Victorian aesthetic. You’ll no longer find any animals on the walls, though—due to concerns about ethical sourcing, the shop has stopped offering taxidermy.
If you’re not sure where to start, popular items include rings made with glass eyeballs and lucite specimens (imagine a real butterfly, preserved and presented in glass), many of which Kunkle makes upstairs in a small workspace.
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Sources
- Yelp: Loved To Death: http://www.yelp.com/biz/loved-to-death-san-francisco-3
- San Francisco Chronicle: "Where Victorians Left Their Mark" (February 2011): http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2011/02/11/TRHI1HI5R8.DTL
