From the Ghanaian axatse to the Chinese zhongruan, Wesleyan University’s Virtual Instrument Museum has the information, sometimes including audio and video, on dozens of instruments unlikely to be familiar to Americans. Note: the “gender” is not what you think. (Hat tip to the Librarians’ Internet Index.)
See something you’ve just got to have? Fortunately it’s been commodified. Surf on over to the commercial site Lark in the Morning, which appears to have a larger selection, less rigorously classified. There, axatses range from $21 to $42, a gender is $795, and no zhongruans are available.
If you prefer your exhibits physical, check out SenseList’s 32 “Weirdly Specific Museums,” including a Lawnmower Museum and the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. FYI, the comments here are better than the links. (Hat tip to Museum Madness.)
And if you’d rather turn off the damn computer and learn how museums got that way, with a good dose of in-print weirdness, dig up the 2001 book Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads, by Stephen Asma of Columbia College Chicago.