Oddity Central

The Eccentric German Millionaire Who Lived on Less Than $500 a Month
Chinese Farmers Can Grow Gourds into Virtually Any Shape
This Guy Has Been Saving All His Nail Clippings Since 1978

The Eccentric German Millionaire Who Lived on Less Than $500 a Month

Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:44 AM PDT

When millionaire Klaus Zapf passed away this week, the whole of Germany mourned his death. The eccentric tycoon, who always had millions at his disposal, actually lived a frugal life by choice. What endeared him most to the people of his nation was his generous nature – he gave most of his money away, while he lived on only $500 a month.

"I don't need any money. It just makes us unequal," Klaus once said. "There are just so many bloody idiots with money around, you don't need another one.”

Zapf, 62, had made his fortune in the relocation business – he ran a company called Zapf Umzüge, which he often referred to as 'West Berlin's best removals collective'. His distinctive blue and yellow vans were quite well-known in city streets as they picked up and unloaded wares from across the country and the world.

Posted: 26 Aug 2014 02:24 AM PDT

Looking at the detailed sculptures in the photos below, You'd be tempted to think they are made of wax, but believe it or not, they're actually gourds! Enterprising Chinese farmers are able to grow these veggies into any shape they want. The most popular one is Chairman Mao, but there are many others as well – Buddha, Jesus, Santa Claus, babies, old men, monks, dragons, and pretty much anything else that attracts people’s attention.

You might think there's some complex bioengineering or agricultural science going on behind these gourd-sculptures, but in reality, they're just grown in simple plastic molds. It all started when a man named Xie Lyu Zhi visited the Thousand Year Temple in Sichuan Province. He claims that during the visit, a Buddhist monk told him about a dream he had about a gourd shaped like a deity.

Posted: 26 Aug 2014 12:57 AM PDT

58-year-old oil investor Richard Gibson has one of the weirdest collections in the world. For the past 36 years, he has been religiously saving all his toenail clippings in a glass jar.

Collecting toenails is a strange hobby, but Richard says that he didn't exactly plan for it – it sort of happened as a result of his curiosity, and he just never stopped. He happened to be clipping his nails one day in February, 1978, and instead of throwing them out, he just put them in a manicure box. He then started doing it repeatedly, just to see how long it would take to fill up the box. That didn't take too long – only two years – and by then he was pretty much hooked. So he moved his collection to a large glass jar, which is what now uses to put the clippings in.

"I have no idea how many nails are in the jar," Gibson admitted. "It's well into the thousands."