The person who has everything does not need another expensive version of something they already own. What works is an object with a story they have not heard, from a place they respect.
Museum shops are good at this. Alongside the postcards they sell licensed editions, artist collaborations and things made by small workshops for that museum alone, most of which never reach an ordinary department store.
We went looking for those across 14 museum shops and picked 13. Everything here costs more than $150 and several cost a great deal more, so check the price on the shop's page before you fall in love.
In 1944 the Julien Levy Gallery in New York asked artists to rethink the chess set. Two of the sets below come out of that exhibition. The third is older still.
Alexander Calder made his chess set in 1944 for the Julien Levy exhibition, and kept one at home in Connecticut. This edition of 2,000, published by Cahiers d'Art with the Calder Foundation, recreates that set in painted solid wood: 32 pieces up to about 5 inches tall, a board, a yellow tray and a presentation box. It cannot be returned.
Isamu Noguchi's answer to the same 1944 invitation. This new edition is made in Switzerland in Perspex, with a black folding board inlaid with red and translucent white circles in place of squares. The most sculptural of the three.
Man Ray reduced the chess pieces to simple geometric solids in 1920. This re-edition in solid beech is made in Germany under licence from the Man Ray Trust, and includes a 17-inch board.
When the Whitney moved into its Renzo Piano building in 2015, Max Mara worked with Piano's studio on a bag to mark it, and the ribbed leather echoes the building's steel facade. This is the micro size, about 8 inches wide, in calfskin with a suede lining, made in Italy. All sales are final.
A 33 by 66 inch silk scarf taken from the Hartwell Memorial Window, the vast Tiffany Studios landscape in glass from 1917 that the Art Institute of Chicago put on display in 2021. The design is attributed to Agnes Northrop. A generous size, closer to a wrap.
Sterling silver cufflinks set with stone from the Sterling Hill mine in Ogdensburg, New Jersey, a place famous among mineral collectors for rocks that glow under ultraviolet light. They come with a gift box and a certificate of authenticity. For the person who will go and find a UV torch to check.
A cast brass replica of the nameplate from Mallard, the locomotive that set the world speed record for steam in 1938. It is 64 cm long, and hand made to order in a foundry in West Yorkshire. Wall fixings are not included, and the shop cannot currently ship it to Northern Ireland.
Yayoi Kusama's pumpkin, white with red dots, as a lacquer-painted resin object about 4 inches tall. Her pumpkins are among the most recognisable sculptures of our time, and this is the size that fits on a desk.
The Belgian artist Guido Deleu made The Visitor in 1996 for the entrance of a cultural centre in Flanders: a tall, quiet figure looking up. This is the ceramic edition in red, 15 inches high. It suits a bookshelf, where it appears to be studying whatever is above it.
The two bronze lions by Edward Kemeys have guarded the Michigan Avenue entrance of the Art Institute of Chicago since 1894. These bookends reproduce the pair in poly stone on wooden bases, roughly 10 by 12 inches each. For anyone with a connection to Chicago, nothing else comes close. The shop ships them within the United States only.
Frank Gehry's kettle: mirror-polished stainless steel with a mahogany handle and a whistle cap, both shaped like leaping fish. It holds about 1.8 litres, and the whistle is tuned to sound, the shop says, something like whale song. An architect's joke you can boil water in.
A one-litre glass decanter shaped like a whale lying on its side, with a pewter funnel and a sieve to catch cork. The funnel sends the wine down the inside wall of the glass to let it breathe. The price is in Canadian dollars.
Josef Albers designed these four nesting tables in 1926, while he was teaching at the Bauhaus. Each has a solid oak frame and a lacquered glass top in its own colour: turquoise, yellow, orange and blue. The largest is 60 cm wide. This is furniture, so ask the shop about delivery to your country first. The price shown is in Danish kroner.
We read the public catalogs of the museum shops. Nobody paid to be on this list, and no brand sent us samples: we have not handled these items ourselves. Sizes, materials and edition details come from each shop's own product page, which is also where you buy.
At these prices, read the shop's page carefully before ordering. Several of these items are final sale, some are made to order, and international delivery of large or fragile pieces can be costly or unavailable.
Prices can change and items sell out. When a pick is no longer listed by its shop, it drops off this page.