New Denver Shop Sells Human Skulls And Other Oddities

A new shop on Colfax is selling some unusual items.

Jonathan Alberico has always had a penchant for oddities. His parents, who ran an antique shop on South Broadway, would often let him bid on strange items at auctions.

“My parents at first thought it was very strange and didn’t really understand why, but they never said I wasn’t allowed,” Alberico told Denver Post. “They allowed me a ton of freedom. Whenever my mother asks why I’m so weird, I remind her that she let me watch ‘Aliens’ when I was 4 years old.”

After years of bidding, Alberico has a large collection of unique and rare items. He began sharing his collection in online forums. Once his house was filled with too many of these odd items, he began selling them on the market.

He decided to turn his hobby into a job in 2015, opening The Learned Lemur in Aurora's Heirloom Antique Mall.

Six years later, Alberico said he was ready to take the business to the next level.

On Friday the 13th, The Learned Lemur reopened in a larger space at 2220 E. Colfax Avenue.

You can find oddities as cheap as $5 for slightly damaged animal skulls to as expensive as $5,000 for a 1978 taxidermied giraffe head from a private collection.

Alberico even has human skulls and a headless human skeleton behind his glass cases.

“There are a lot of our customers who find a fascination with a little macabre or something extremely dark,” Alberico said. “We get the occasional witch who needs some parts for magic or a metal head that needs a goat skull for performance, but for the most part it’s people who want to decorate their home in a unique way. We also find people who come just because they’re curious or want to feel uncomfortable.”