Last month I found myself in Essex, England, sinking into a sofa next to Henry Scragg, a bearded, 40-year-old man with ginger dreadlocks and a cornucopia of facial tattoos. I sipped on scalding tea from a mug shaped like a cauldron while Scragg puffed large blooms of smoke into the air from a pipe as we watched his dog chew on a human pelvis. Spines hung from his ceiling by meat hooks, and nearly 100 skulls were loosely arranged in a pyramid behind me. This was Scragg’s office. His desk is a mortuary slab.
Previously a gardener, Scragg, a surprisingly friendly and funny presence, has for the last 15 years collected and sold oddities. The largest part of his collection focuses on human remains, what is known as the “red market,” a multi-billion-dollar trade that covers legal collectibles such as Scragg’s as well as the illegal trade in organs for transplant. Scragg says he can make up to $13,000 a month selling items like mummified hands, pickled organs, and bones. He showed me a jar of ashes and explained that these were the remains of his grandmother, which he plans to auction off for charity. He then proudly pulled out a wallet made from human skin.
