Love for Obscura Antiques

I was doing my usual blog reading this morning and I found on the blog Haute Macabre a posting from Nov 7th about Obscura Antiques. Obscura now has a blog and, holy cow, a TV show, Oddities!!

I was introduced to Obscura and the owners Evan and Mike by friend Miss Erin. Every visit to NYC demanded a pilgrimage to the shop and a chance to chat with Evan and Mike and baby-talk with Evan's dog Yak.

Friday update...found a pic I took of Yak! It was impossible for me to take a pic of him in focus. How I adore that dog and his little fang and pokes out on one side!



Here's an image from their blog of the shop, at least one corner of it...


And a video from their Discovery Channel show Oddities...


My two beloved treasures from Obscura (actually the doughboy photo was a gift for my love G)...




Haven't figured out the species of the raccoon-like creature. It doesn't have the markings of the common raccoon (Procyon lotor) and seems too bulky to be any of the other eight species of the Procyonidae family. The facial markings and ears look at bit like a red panda, but not quite.

I need to find a animal biologist!

UPDATE: Thanks Molly! for the comment that this critter might be the famed tanuki (family: canidae, species: nyctereutes procyonoides)! Who knew they were real? I thought they were a bizarre myth!

The markings and basic color seems a pretty close match. It's difficult to identify the species based on the muzzle shape though as the taxidermy specimen could just be overstuffed in that area, obscuring the original shape. And probably too, the taxidermy's original coloring is pretty sun bleached. All that aside, I think until proven otherwise we have a strong case for this guy being a tanuki. Mystery solved! (for now...)