Entry No. 42 — the Asheville file — filed under: oddities
Dark & Deviant Oddities
A collector named Justyn turned his hobby into a shop and installed it inside Valiant Inscriptions, a tattoo gallery on Hendersonville Road already furnished with Victorian antiques and five resident artists. The cases hold wet specimens in fluid, animal skulls sorted by species, taxidermy, Victorian mourning jewelry woven from human hair, vintage medical instruments, and genuine human bones. The stated mission is to preserve the beauty of life after death and educate from a historical and scientific standpoint, with everything billed as ethically sourced. One posted rule tells you how real the inventory is: human remains cannot be sold to anyone living in Tennessee, Georgia, or Louisiana.
→ Three at a time, never the same twice — explore weird Asheville
The story
Dark & Deviant Oddities is one man's collection that got out of hand in a productive direction. Justyn — "a true black sheep himself," by the shop's own account — started acquiring anything he found strange or interesting for the pleasure of showing it to other people, discovered in college that this was a whole subculture rather than a personal defect, and began buying, selling, and trading in earnest. The name is a souvenir of a criminal justice course called Deviant Behavior: a deviant is someone whose behavior falls outside society's norms, a word almost always used as an insult, and he wanted to put a positive notation on it.
The shop lives inside Valiant Inscriptions, Marc Robertson's tattoo gallery at 1224 Hendersonville Road, where five artists each work out of a separate suite and the whole parlor is furnished with Victorian antiques — an unusually sympathetic host for glass cases of wet specimens, animal skulls, taxidermy, and Victorian mourning jewelry. The inventory skews heavily toward the tools of nineteenth-century medicine and undertaking: a Dodge needle injector, a Charrier's bone saw, an embalming fluid box, a violet ray machine, a set of polio braces, a mortician's makeup kit. Prices posted online run from a $35 reflex hammer to a disarticulated human skull at $1,800.
The stated mission is to preserve the beauty of life after death and to educate from a historical and scientific standpoint, with everything billed as ethically sourced. One house rule confirms the inventory is exactly as literal as it sounds: human remains cannot be sold to anyone residing in Tennessee, Georgia, or Louisiana.
What it's like
The storefront reads as a tattoo parlor, because it is one — you walk in past Valiant Inscriptions' front desk and the sound of machines running in the artists' suites, and the oddities occupy the cases and shelves around it. Free lot parking out front in a South Asheville strip. The posted counter hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 9pm-ish, and the "ish" is theirs, not ours, so call ahead if the drive is the point. Once you're in, it's a browsing room rather than a museum: everything has a price, most things have a card explaining what they are, and the staff will open a case if you ask. Ask before handling anything, don't photograph strangers mid-tattoo, and give yourself longer than you planned — the medical instrument shelf alone eats twenty minutes.
The move: Go after dinner on a weeknight — the counter runs until 9pm Tuesday through Saturday. Pick each other one object under the case glass, wet specimen or hair-work brooch, then argue on the drive home about which shelf it lives on.
📍 Before you go Inside Valiant Inscriptions Tattoo Gallery in a South Asheville strip with free lot parking. The oddities shop keeps roughly Tue-Sat 1-9pm; the tattoo gallery itself runs Mon-Sat 12-9 and Sun 1-7, so confirm the counter is staffed before a special trip. State law blocks human-remains sales to TN, GA, and LA residents. Walk-in tattoos are taken if the visit escalates.
- 📍 Asheville
- 💸 $$
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: 1224 Hendersonville Rd, Asheville, NC 28803
Hours: Added 2026-08-25 — confirm current hours before you go.
Pair it with
- The Salt Spa of Asheville & Himalayan Salt Cave Sanctuary — Two and a half miles up the same Hendersonville Road strip — five tons of pink Himalayan salt in zero-gravity chairs is a reasonable antidote to an hour spent reading specimen labels.
- The Odd — The counter here shuts at 9; The Odd runs to 2 a.m. across town in West Asheville, where the taxidermy watches you drink instead of quoting you a price.
- Madam Clutterbucket's Neurodiverse Universe — Downtown, and the opposite pole of the Asheville curiosity shop: mystery bags and sensory fidgets where this one has bone saws and mourning jewelry.
More weird in Asheville
Good to know
Where is it, and can I just walk in?
1224 Hendersonville Road in South Asheville, inside Valiant Inscriptions Tattoo Gallery, with free lot parking. No appointment needed. The oddities counter posts Tuesday-Saturday 1-9pm; the tattoo gallery itself runs Mon-Sat noon-9 and Sun 1-7, so call (828) 575-9955 before a special trip to confirm someone's behind the case.
What does anything cost?
A wide spread. Their online inventory runs from a $35 vintage reflex hammer or a $45 Odd Fellows medallion up to a disarticulated human skull at $1,800, with most Victorian medical and mortuary pieces — bone saw, needle injector, embalming fluid box, undertaker's hand pump — landing between $65 and $275.
Can I really buy human remains?
Yes, with a hard geographic exception: the shop will not sell human remains to anyone residing in Tennessee, Georgia, or Louisiana. Everything in stock is billed as ethically sourced, and pieces generally come with a card on their origin or historical context.
Can we get tattooed while we're there?
That's the host business. Valiant Inscriptions takes walk-ins as well as appointments across five artists — founder Marc Robertson (realism), Mason Turbyfill (neo-traditional), Rob Westphal (tribal), Yvette Yvelle (illustrative), and JD Reed — each working out of their own suite.
If the shop is closed, where else can I find them?
Their events page tracks the Oddities & Curiosities Expo circuit, the traveling weekend shows that hit Charlotte, Atlanta, Richmond, and Tampa among others, with taxidermy and entomology classes on site. Check the page for current dates before counting on it — the listings can run behind.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Official site · familydestinationsguide.com · valiantinscriptions.com
📷 We made a card for this one on Instagram →
last checked: 2026-08-25