A coconut shell. A pincushion. A shipwreck survivor. A Royal Navy expedition. A Captain Cook monument. And a journey of thousands of miles. Some museum objects announce their importance immediately. They are large, beautiful, rare or obviously historic. Others are rather more deceptive. Our Object of the Month is one of the latter. At first glance, it looks like a rather attractive piece of old coconut shell, polished to a warm brown, with the inside adapted to make a pincush

From the Staithes Museum Newsletter, June 2026 For over two centuries, the face of Captain James Cook has been an fixture of global history, appearing on everything from coins and stamps to commemorative plaques and statues. In the museum he appears everywhere - from statuettes to sardine tins. However, for those who seek to find the "real" man behind the navigator, the history of his portraits offers a series of competing and often contradictory identities. As the noted Coo