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About Museum » World’s Largest Hamburger Collection

Hamburger Exhibit

The world's largest collection of hamburger items includes:

- An original Burger Time arcade game
- Burger telephones
- Salt and pepper shakers
- Burger radios
- Hamburger banks
- Burger pillows
- Doggie squeeze toys
- Burger candles
- Music boxes
- Yo yo's, beads and pot holders
- Burger jewelry, watches and magnets
- Hamburger pencils, cups and note pads
- Cups, glasses and books
- Burger T-shirts, sweatshirts and blankets
- Hamburger "Barbie" and other dolls
- Burger lunch bucket and thermos
- Numerous plates and eating utensils
- Battery operated burger skate board
- Teapot and service
- Burger wind-up toys and much more

Over 1,500 items!

For more information about the birth of the Burger in Seymour and Burger Fest go to www.homeofthehamburger.org

News Article about Jeffrey Tennyson

New York Times - August 24, 2006 By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Jeffrey Tennyson Jeffrey Tennyson, an artist whose obsession with hamburgers - equal parts gastronomic, folkloric and satiric — resulted in a book on burger history and a hoard of thousands of burger knickknacks, died Aug. 18 at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 54.

Mr. Tennyson’s love affair with hamburgers sprouted from fond childhood memories of neon-adorned fast-food temples serviced by ponytailed carhops laden with trays of chocolate malts and juicy deluxe burger platters. He told The Washington Times in 1995 that the burger bug irrevocably bit in the early 1980’s when he was living in New York and noticed a burger stand on almost every corner while taking a bus down Broadway. “The real American icon is not apple pie,” he realized. “It’s the hamburger.”

So he started to collect hamburger memorabilia and artwork, and collected and collected and collected: hamburger juggling sets, hamburger teapots, hamburger cookie jars and salt-and-pepper shakers, along with the predictable posters and photographs of hamburgers. In all, Mr. Tennyson accumulated more than 2,000 hamburger things.

His book, “Hamburger Heaven” (Hyperion, 1993), was a natural outgrowth of the collecting, and took a highly visual approach, reflecting Mr. Tennyson’s background as a magazine art director. A review in The Chicago Sun-Times called the pictures “enormously distracting,” clearly meaning that as a compliment. The total effect, the reviewer said, was to “chronicle a history of our clothing, our architecture, our cars, our tastes — along with our most relished sandwich.

Judging by the large reaction the book received from the news media, Mr. Tennyson’s words resonated almost as much as his art. He appeared on numerous television and radio programs to theorize, rhapsodize and, occasionally, sermonize on burgers.

When Tennyson passed away in 2006, he left his collection to his friend Monte Greges; who generously donated it to The Home of the Hamburger, in Seymour, WI, so others could enjoy the unique assortment of Hamburger Items.

Jeffrey Tennyson's Hamburger Exhibit

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