Uncommon Objects

Like an elegant antique mall gone horribly wrong, 24 different vendors sell their weird and eclectic wares in eye-catching booth displays lined up along aisles at Austin’s premier curiosities shop. It’s been described as “your eccentric uncle’s attic on steroids.” And remember, this is no museum. This stuff is for sale.

Uncommon Objects opened in 1991. The founder, Steve Weiman, is a collector and assemblage artist who honed his eye for Texas-style kitsch and memorabilia during a stint as prop-finder for the Chili’s restaurant chain. Joel Mozersky, who’s since become one of Austin’s (and Texas’s) best-known interior designers, worked at the store’s original South Congress location back in the ’90s as well.

Uncommon Objects has matured over the years into the one-of-a-kind emporium of transcendent junk that you see before you. Twenty-four hardworking antique sellers have been assembled under one roof to bring you this very genuine and sometimes quirky slice of American culture and history.

The shop carries every imaginable type of random find, from cases of costume jewelry to wall-mounted antlers, rustic furniture to boxes of old photographs, old signs, pinball machines, and recently, a taxidermy terrier that looked just like Toto. It was originally located on then-seedy South Congress Ave, which in the 1990s meant it shared the street with the likes of drug dealers, sex workers, and a porn theater. Today the area’s been greatly gentrified, resulting in Uncommon Objects relocating to less-expensive digs a bit further south.