IF you fancy practising your Hamlet or just scaring `trick or treating' children witless, Belfast's strangest bric-a-brac emporium has just the thing - half a human skeleton.
The box of bones, complete with a painstakingly taped-up skull, can be yours for a mere £750 at `On The Square Emporium & Auction House' at Albert Square - a stone's throw from the city's trendy cathedral quarter.
The skull and neatly coiled spine are nestled in wooden dividers on the top layer, with the bigger bones arranged beneath.
They used to be owned by a doctor, from the days when medical students could take the remains of the cadaver they had dissected during their degree home.
Often these were displayed in GPs' surgeries, where they would be used for reference by doctors discussing common ailments with patients.
This has fallen out of fashion, not least due to the Human Tissue Act (2004), which sought to ensure that donated material was disposed of in a respectful and safe way.
However, boxed skeletons issued to medical students in years gone by do not fall under this legislation and private collections of such bones are legal and, although disposal needs to be via a licensed establishment with a recorded incineration, private holdings can be transferred to another private individual.
Bones which are more than 100 years old can be displayed without a Human Tissue Act licence, nor does any material which was stored before it became law on September 1 2006.
Those who perhaps don't have the room for a full half-skeleton, can buy a complete skull instead.
It has been finished with a shiny coating and has a spring connecting the main skull to the jawbone allowing it to open and close.
This extra bit of detailing sees it retail for between £800 and £1,000.
According to manager Patrick Woolsey, while they don't fly out the door, there is a brisk business in the body parts.
"We sold one from Asia a few weeks ago," he said.
"It was from India and it was sold for £750. The half skeleton is a former doctor's family selling it. I think it is around 80 years old.
"There was a time when medical students would have been given them, but the law has changed and it has to be over a certain age now."
There is a very stringent system for donating your body for medical teaching, with the safety of medical students paramount.
Following the Human Tissue Act, bodies cannot be donated if the person succumbed to some communicable illness and they must be as intact and "normal" as possible to reflect the majority of people a typical doctor will encounter.
Some medical schools now hold committal, memorial or thanksgiving services after use.
