According to LucasFilm, unless someone has an undocumented secret collection, the Ravenwood Museum in Manitoba, Canada, is the largest private Indiana Jones collection in the World.
…and last week I was invited to visit!
Most of what I did was run from shelf to shelf saying things like, “No Way!”, “Oh My God!” & “Shut Up!” so I didn’t take all the photos I wish I had. But here are the few I managed to walk away with…
The Ravenwood Museum is an 1,100 sq. foot building with over 7,000 Indiana Jones items from around the world. I got wind of it last year when I started listening to The IndyCast podcast. Les David is the man who put it all together 6 years ago in a refurbished barn on his private property. The collection isn’t open to the public, so I was honored to have Les give me a tour himself.
The Fertility Idol & Indy’s replacement bag of sand. (from Raiders)
Although museum pieces included clothing, music, books, toys, games and many prototypes never before seen by the pubic, most of the items I photographed are Prop Replicas & Sixth Scale Figure Environments from Sideshow Collectibles.
Indy being rescued by Sallah in the Map Room. (from Raiders)
As part of the collection there were many meticulously crafted fan made items. Nurhaci’s Urn, pictured below, is fan made.
Gold coins, Diamond & the remains of Nurhaci. (from Temple)
Pamphlet promoting Willie Scott at Club Obi Wan & the all important Antidote. (from Temple)
Mola Ram & Indy play tug-of-war with the Sankara Stones. (from Temple)
The Cross of Coronado (from Crusade)
Me, gingerly holding the Holy Grail. (from Crusade)
A bearded Indy plays sax in Mystery of the Blues. (from Young Indy)
Les had an entire wall lined with Indy slot machines and arcade games brought in from around the globe.
Even with such a supple wrist I never finished my Indy pinball game due to distraction.
There were huge cabinet drawers carefully preserving rare posters and original Indy art. Included were the “Free Mining for the Kids” poster, seen at the top of this post, and this wonderful piece…
An original canvas painting depicting Indy preparing for one of his adventures.
Containing my inner child while holding the Chalice of Kali & the Fertility Idol in front of a life sized Indy.
The big Indy news being discussed this summer is the upcoming BluRay release of the movies. Many Indy fans are upset that deleted scenes will not be included. Les had a photo of the Indy riding the periscope deleted scene from Raiders, and was cool enough to email it to me…
Deleted periscope scene. (from Raiders)
What felt like 15 minutes was actually 3 hours spent jumping from one item to another. Les was very patient, allowing me to handle many pieces and giving me the story behind everything I saw. Even after that lengthy visit I never got to explore everything and will one day have to return. I’m obviously an Indiana Jones fan, and to be in a room dedicated to Indy, floor to ceiling, was an absolute thrill. 3 days later I’m still buzzing about it and regretting not taking the time to read the entire Grail Diary, or take a picture of the original “Marvel Further Adventures…” cover art, or to chloroform Les and play with all his Indy toys while he slept.
I wanna thank Ed Dolista from The IndyCast and give a HUGE thank you to Les David for the invite, taking the time to show me around & for all the work he has done collecting & documenting everything in The Ravenwood Museum. Check out his website www.ThrowMetheIdol.com and ‘like’ the Throw Me The Idol facebook page.
Thanks, Les.
-PG-
-ps- An Indy-ish video I did a number of years ago 
When someone chooses “Crystal Skull” as their favorite Indy film does it auto-ban them from Your site?
The Ravenwood museum is such a fun place to visit. I’ve had the privelege to know Les for quite a few years. He is one of the nicest, most knowledgeable and funniest story tellers around!! You can wander the museum for hours, and everytime, come across something new and interesting!
The Ravenwood museum is the best movie related museum that i have ever been to visit. Its an incredible privilege to see Les David’s collection that he has been collecting for years.His stories of his collecting will keep you captivated for hours, time will absolutely fly by, I have been so very lucky and thankfull to have known Les for a few years and have cherished my time at the museum,
Happy archaeologist day, my young padawan!
He’s my uncle trololol.
It is an awesome museum, and I was amazed when I first saw it. It’s incredible to see how it keeps growing.