During the October 2014-June 2015 closure of Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on the downtown waterfront due to city seawall reconstruction, the Southwest Seattle Historical Society is hosting a focus-area exhibit on the long time Seattle waterfront attraction. At a special presentation on Friday Oct. 24 members of the James family who have owned the shop for decades were in attendance at the Log House museum to recall memories and answer questions. Representing the family were Joe James, Andy James, and Neil James.

Joe James described the mission of the shop as,"We try to handle items that were curios as well as things we believed had some practical value. It just seems that everybody is interested in the odd things.The shop appeals to people because of the variety of odd things from all over the world."

It features the original desk of founder J.E. “Daddy” Standley, who had a home in West Seattle at the corner of Palm Ave. SW and California Ave. SW. The exhibit also features some of the thousands of remarkable items the shop has stored in a warehouse "the size of a football field," said exhibit curator Peg Boettcher. Included are a 1904 Charlie Chaplin nickelodeon, multiple iguanas, many moose racks, native American carvings, Samovars from Russia, Japanese fishing glass floats, carved paddles, a stuffed shark and dozens of unusual and odd “curios” typical of the shop. Boettcher is the “Chief Wrangler” for Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, with the support of owners Andy and Tammy James.

Likely the most famous item in the shops collection is mummified man nicknamed Sylvester. Andy James said, "the story we got was that he was found in the Gila Bend Desert in Arizona. He was shot and perfectly preserved within 48 hours. In later years we had him studied quite a bit. We found that the timing is about right and he's certainly real but that he was actually preserved intentionally with arsenic. Arsenic was a very common preservative around the Civil War time."