'Ian's ashes. Do not sell' reads the handwritten note sellotaped to the small brown urn. It's just about the only thing you can't buy in Empire Exchange, Manchester's most brilliantly bizarre shop.
But not so long ago that's exactly what happened. Ian's remains - co-founder Ian Stott who died in 2021 aged 64 - were sold to an unwitting customer for £3.
"She brought it back a couple of days later," laughs store manager Dave Ireland. "She thought it was someone's pet's ashes. I didn't even realise they'd gone! We gave her her three quid and put them back."
Even if you've never set foot in Empire Exchange just off Piccadilly Gardens, chances are you'll know it for its bonkers window display and the soundtrack of Manc classics and power ballads belting out into the street. 'Decidedly different' reads a peeling hand-painted sign above the door. That's putting it mildly.
Down the stairs in the sprawling basement stacked floor to ceiling with stock, you'll find an Aladdin's cave of antiques, curios, tat and collectibles.
Dave, whose dad John set up the shop in 1992 alongside Ian and Paul Herstall, describes it as a 'collectibles facility'. "We sell anything that is collectible, which is just about everything really," he said.
There's vintage porn, an old Wilson's pub sign, a set of traffic lights, at least three acoustic guitars without strings and a commemorative mug from the England cricket team's 2009 Ashes victory. Hanging from the stairs is an absolutely terrifying model of a giant sea monster, and stacked floor to ceiling on shelves around the entire shop are thousands and thousands of books, comics, magazines and vinyl records.
It's completely mad and absolutely ace. "We've never done a stock-take," said Dave. "We've no idea how much stuff we've got. The storeroom is even fuller than this."
Recent additions to the shelves have included a collection of mint condition 1960s and 70s Spiderman comics - the best of which are on sale for more £150 each - and 40 pogo sticks found under the stairs from a house clearance in Irlam.
The comics are selling well, the pogo sticks are proving a little harder to shift, says Dave. Elsewhere there's a a signed Nobby Stiles photo collage, several old analogue radio sets and a six foot foot tall candle costume used by the BBC and priced at £300.
But when you specialise in everything, sometimes the odd valuable item can slip through the net. Last year the store bought two boiler suits from a house clearance in Ancoats.
While Dave was putting one on a mannequin in the shop window, a man came in and bought the pair for £200.
It turned out it was an F1 race suit that used belong to tragic driver Roland Ratzenberger, who was killed in a 200mph crash at the San Marino grand prix in 1994. It later went up for auction for £20,000.
The shop began life in the Corn Exchange in 1992, where it was originally known as Just For Today. Over the next few years it moved several times, including to old bookies at Shudehill and to a shop near the former BBC on Oxford Road, before settling in its basement home on Newton Street in 1998.
Now the Empire Exchange is part and parcel of Mancunian life. But with the development and gentrification of the city centre showing no signs of slowing down, the future for curious, eccentric shops such as this is uncertain.
Dave, for one, believes the city will be poorer place if businesses like his are lost.
"They're building flats everywhere, rents are being pushed up and shops like this are being pushed out," he said.
"[The shop] is a folly really. None of it is necessary. But we are the alternative. If shops like this are lost and everything become homogenised I think a city loses something."
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