How much would you pay to see Abraham Lincoln's final bowel movement?

In the late 19th century, a visit to a whole museum full of similar sensational oddities would have only cost you a dime - hence the term "dime museum."

The Gettysburg Dime Museum's admission will be slightly higher when it opens on May 10 ($7 for adults, $5 for children ages 6-12 and free for ages 5 and under; cash only). But owner Mark Kosh is pretty confident that visitors will get their money's worth out of the various bizarre exhibits and installations.

"Before they were the institutions of higher learning that they are now, museums were more for entertainment," said Kosh.

Such folk art was pure "lowbrow" entertainment in the days of hucksters like P.T. Barnum, who made an industry out of presenting hoaxes and gaffs and passing them off as the genuine article.

Kosh himself has faced some flack from some in Gettysburg, particularly for his plans to display a piece of supposed presidential excrement.

But Kosh isn't out to con anyone. He has a fondness for the bizarre, and he appreciates the entertainment value and artistry that went into the taxidermy of cryptids like the Fiji mermaid, the flesh-eating toad and the alligator man.

"It's basically folk art," Kosh said of the constructed, fictitious creatures. But manufactured mythical beasts are also found next to authentic yet strange artifacts, like John Wayne Gacy's typewriter. "P.T. Barnum's American Museum in New York was the only chance people might have to see a penguin in their lives," he added.

Kosh's collection all began when his wife, knowing his love of unusual items, bought him a scale model reproduction of Daniel Lambert, the London Fat Man.

"She bought it for me when we were dating," Kosh laughed. "I said, 'she's a keeper.'"

For more information on the Gettysburg Dime Museum, visit the museum's Facebook page.