How it started
The tale of the whale sign, told plainly, the way a ship’s log should be.
The story of the sign
It started with a whale.
Not a real one, a sign. An old whale, painted flat sky-blue and outlined in black, holding on to its paint the way old signs and old sailors do. If it looks familiar, it should: the whale at the top of every page on this site is that sign, very nearly line for line. We didn’t design a logo. We just looked up at the wall and said, that one, she'll do.
The Whaleworx mark, traced from the old whale sign that started all of this.
Where weird things wash up
A sign like that doesn’t stay alone for long. It makes room for the next strange, well-made thing, a regiment of lead soldiers, a painting nobody signed, a brass bell loud enough to rattle the windows, and then the next. That’s how a collection starts, and how a hold fills up. Whaleworx is what happens when you let it, and stop apologizing to your landlord. Ahab had his whale; we have a storage unit in the South Loop.
What we’re about
Whaleworx is a high-end thrift shop for the strange and the well-made: art, findings, oddities and objects with some years on them, priced in the middle, for people who’d rather own one good weird thing than ten forgettable ones. Every lot is one of one. We describe each piece honestly, scars, barnacles and all, because the wear is usually the best part. We are Ishmael, not Ahab: we tell the whole story, and we are not chasing anything.
Weird things for good folks. That’s the whole philosophy, and the only rule aboard that is actually a rule, besides no ketchup on a hot dog.
If something here stops you mid-scroll, it was probably waiting for you. The deep does that. So does Chicago.
