Unique Gifts Under $50

Horror. Adventure. Noir. For the first time, your life can actually smell like the genre you wish it was!

Eric Grundhauser Senior Producer

This paean to bovine beauty features photographs of 105 of the world's most amazing cows. Moo.

While the beauty of brutalist and concrete architecture still stirs controversy, there's no debate about the beauty of these well designed and wonderfully informative maps from the talented cartographers at Blue Crow Media.

The perfect gift for your favorite member of The Finer Things Club, this “Anecdotal History of Elegant Delights” covers everything from Aerostation, i.e. the art of hot air ballooning to Xiguo Jifa, the art of memory.

Tyler Cole VP, Community

Dozens of towns around the world that have given themselves over to books and bookshops, and with this guide you can imagine visiting them all!

Sarah Laskow Senior Writer

In the recent past, owning a copy of Les Diners de Gala, Salvador Dali’s rare and eccentric cookbook, cost upwards of $400. Now you can buy it for much less, thanks to a Taschen reprint. With recipes ranging from fast-acting cocktails to lambs brain with avocado to a royal peacock...

A surreal watch for surreal times.

Calamityware offers classic porcelain in throughly modern patterns. This plate featuring a streaking Sasquatch is just one of many playful examples.

In the era of pods, the stovetop coffee machine has become an endangered species. Get this iconic Italian kitchen appliance while you still can.

Everyone needs a trebuchet because everyone also occasionally needs to fling things.

A favorite toy of my young nephew, even if he did “accidentally” steer it into a losing battle with a ceiling fan.

Tyler Cole VP, Community

Not only are they beautiful miniature works of art, these space-themed lollipops open a world of pun possibilities. Some suggestions: “I love you to the moon and back” and “I thank my lucky stars for you!”

Larissa Hayden

A walking dad joke if there was ever one.

I recently received this as a gift. My friend just told me she'd gotten me a notebook, so it was a very cool and startling surprise to be blinded by light when I opened it. I felt like I'd found a magic artifact.

Abi Inman Senior Audience Development Manager

Civilian space tourism isn’t quite ready for blast-off. In the meantime, this poster—which evokes the slew of 1930s-era Works Progress Administration posters that touted America’s national parks—can help armchair astronauts’ imaginations take flight.

Jessica Leigh Hester Senior Editor + Writer

This is a stunningly detailed pop-up book that can morph into a planetarium, an infinite calendar, a message encoder, and more. Super cool.

Blake Olmstead Head of Design

The Manhattan leg of the New York City subway system distilled to its essence—each dot represents a station on this elegantly minimalist poster.

This salt lamp provides a beautiful dreamlike glow that helps you wind down and drift off to sleep feeling relaxed. I’ve gifted one to practically all of my girlfriends. If I were Oprah, it would definitely be one of my favorite things.

Sheila Baker Designer

A surviving, signature concession from the now defunct Crystal Beach Amusement Park in Fort Erie, Ontario, loganberry drink is sweet, tart, and an intensely dark purple.

I recently had the phenomenal opportunity to staff Atlas Obscura's Death Valley astronomy and night photography trip alongside Tyler Nordgren, an incredibly talented astronomer and artist. Tyler has not only spent years working with the National Park Service on public science and astronomy education—including writing a book on the subject—but...

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences

Protein-packed chips that come in several flavors, are extremely tasty, and just happen to be made out of crickets.

Cara Giaimo Staff Writer

Armchair travel meets tin foil hats in this gorgeously designed book documenting sites around the U.S. where UFOs have been spotted. It’s a photographic road trip through E.T. visitation past and present.

Blake Olmstead Head of Design

A timeless practical joke in the form of a wine glass. Designed by an ancient Greek philosopher, it functions like a normal wine glass but spills everywhere when over-filled by the gluttonous.

Larissa Hayden

This bubblegum-hued, peppermint-flavored pig is a Christmas Day tradition in Saratoga Springs, New York. After placing the pink porker in a velvet pouch, each family member gives it a thwack with an accompanying tiny metal mallet and shares a story of their good fortune from the past year. Once everyone...

Sam O'Brien

Internationally-renowned photographer Matt Lambros traveled across the United States to document the country's abandoned theaters—from the supposedly haunted Pacific Warner Theatre in Los Angeles to the Orpheum Theatre in New Bedford, MA. 

A spindly twig that predicts the weather? Think what you will, it's probably just as accurate as your smartphone weather app, or, for that matter, Karen from Mean Girls. Made from "weather-detecting" balsam fir, this elegant 14-inch pseudo-meteorological device curves upwards for clear skies or downwards for rain and snow....

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences

Earthlings have gazed at the dark, star-speckled sky for millennia, and this box of postcards compiles 50 impressions, from the scientific—such images plumbed from Galileo’s notebooks or the NASA archives—to the fanciful.

Jessica Leigh Hester Senior Editor + Writer

The definitive guide to fermentation by the decade's definitive chef.

Tyler Cole VP, Community

From early computer programmers to the “girl gamers” of the 1990s, Claire Evans does an incredible job of highlighting the important women who are often left out of conventional tellings of internet history. I just finished this book and can see their influence everywhere now—not just in the internet as...

Lex Berko Senior Editor

When I was a kid, I used to charge my older cousins fees for returning borrowed books late. This personal library kit would have made cataloging my collection a whole lot easier.

Jordan Schultz Director of Marketing & Audience

Pass the time by putting together a puzzle representation of Frank Lloyd Wright's unique home, Fallingwater. Between piecing together the blueprints and the house's iconic look, it's bound to amaze the architecture lover in your life.

Samantha Chong Associate Director, Audience Development

There's nothing like a few drinks to bring a bookclub together, and even better if they're literary themed. With concoctions classically entitled Vermouth the Bell Tolls and Romeo and Julep, you'll get the bookworm party started right.

Jordan Schultz Director of Marketing & Audience

Baboons do it unashamedly. Coral snakes do it in defense. Parrots don't do it at all. Find out which animals fart and which animals don't in this oddly detailed book.

This newly annotated edition of the classic wrests the text from English majors and hands it to STEMers, but also brings the concerns of literature—moral weight, literary device, creativity—to readers at risk of underestimating their importance.

What better way to stay in touch with the far corners of capitalism than by having obscure industry trade journals sent to your door? My last issues of Elevator World and American Laundry News were positively scintillating.

Joshua Foer Co-Founder

Enjoy the illusion of motion with the 18 included picture strips, or become an amateur animator by drawing your own.

Beep Boop. Beep Boop. Beep Boop. Beep Boop. I'm an adorable, little tin can robot. Beep Boop.

Jordan Schultz Director of Marketing & Audience

Learn the basics of photography and make beautiful shadow prints using just the sun, water, and this light sensitive paper.

Larissa Hayden

Invented in France 1955, the wood-handled N°06 is the smallest Opinel pocket knife to feature the manufacturer's iconic locking safety ring.

Tyler Cole VP, Community

A wall clock pared down to the essentials. Hang it as-is in your minimalist living room, our surround it with family photos for a different looks entirely.

Tuck these tiny wind-up butterflies into an old book or a birthday card and watch the recipient's surprise as they suddenly fly away.

Larissa Hayden

Hide your most important secrets deep in your bookcase. If you're a bibliophile, this book safe will fool the most cunning of thieves.

Jordan Schultz Director of Marketing & Audience

If you love books, you're predisposed to loving fonts, considering as no book would exist without them. This font-astically fascinating book does a deep dive into how a font is created, dispersed, used, and misused (including anachronistically!), and it will having you looking at words on a page with a...

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences

A feat of human invention and ingenuity in the service of laziness, these spectacles function like a periscope to allow you to watch TV (or read) while lying in bed.

With a bit of time and patience, you can have your own miniature wind-powered robot just like the large scale ones made by Dutch artist Theo Jansen.

Larissa Hayden

“Who doesn't want a dose of existentialism with their egg nog?” — Tamara, Seattle, Washington

Each of the cards in this deck holds a low-stakes challenge. Accept it, and you’ll find yourself paying attention to the shifting textures of the terrain under your feet, keeping watch for circles and squares, or spreading out a picnic in an unexpected place. Pack a few for your next...

Jessica Leigh Hester Senior Editor + Writer

Stay a safe distance from creepy-crawlers with this one-handed, bug-catching tool and 5x magnifying lens. After a good, close look, initiate the quick-release and send your insect friend unharmed and on its way.

Tyler Cole VP, Community

Give a classic arcade feel to any rocker-style light switch. No electrical wiring (or quarters) needed.

The perfect accessory for your next cemetery cocktail party, make any drink more curious with skull-shaped ice.

Paula Mejia Gastro Obscura Associate Editor

Knowing your way around rope is like having a secret super power. This little knot-tying set is the perfect pocket-sized introduction to mastering friction, tension, and strain. You'll have the most able set of hands at any camp site, boat dock, or rock face. 

Are those human molars or piranha incisors? Is that a tail or a snout? Are the eyeballs supposed to be on the back of the head, and why are they different sizes? These are all valid questions to ask when leafing through this unconventional, pocket-size coffee table book—guaranteed to draw...

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences

Ever notice how the self-appointed hero often only makes matters worse? Show you're not someone in need of rescuing with this bold enamel pin.

This 24-hour video of construction workers continually rebuilding the time out of lumber and bolts is a mesmerizing piece of art. I took an old smartphone, installed this app, and now have a beautifully strange clock on my wall.

Joshua Foer Co-Founder

We spotted a very stylish Atlas Obscura event attendee donning this world map necklace. What a wonderful statement piece for a travel-minded fashionista!

Larissa Hayden

Love table-top and role-playing games? Pin and share that love with this charming little icosahedron.

My grand uncle used to stock in boxes of Blenheim Ginger Ale at his farm. When I was a kid, it was the first thing I would seek out upon arriving for a weekend stay. I was proud to be the only one of my cousins who could drink the pink...

Luke Thomas Senior Software Engineer

A well-researched and lively read about one of the most impressive technological achievements of all time: the 1858 laying of a telegraph line crossing the Atlantic and connecting North America to Europe.

Tyler Cole VP, Community

This delightful, debut children's book by former Atlas Obscura staff writer Sarah Laskow answers important unicorn questions like why are unicorns associated with rainbows, why do some unicorns have wings, and—of course—are unicorns real? 

If you haven't heard, single-use plastic straws are on their way out. Get ahead of the curve with this elegant and easy-to-clean set of twelve.

Rain delays can ruin even the best-planned adventures, but this waterproof card deck is a great way to wait out the storm. Perfect for the beach as well.

If there's anything can be more divisive than licorice itself, it's likely licorice-flavored toothpaste. What's not debatable, however, is that this beautifully-packaged Italian import will look great next to your bathroom sink.

Tyler Cole VP, Community

Place this miraculous, flopping fish in your palm and learn your future. Don't like what it reveals? No worries, it's a 72-pack.

Wear your heart on your sleeve or anywhere else you might like with this anatomically-correct iron-on patch.