Tip or Skip

Tip or Skip Visits the Evolution Store

Tip or Skip is all about awesome products that are unearthed by you. And I ask you, what’s more awesome than fossils that you can actually buy? A few weeks ago we paid a visit to the world renowned Evolution Store in SoHo, where such treasures are on display and up for sale. We met up with one of the owners, Julie, who regaled us with tales of meteorites, human skeletons, and the things that you can find on ebay.

Q: How did the Evolution Store come to be?

A: The store was founded by my dad, William Stevens in 1993. Natural history had always been a passion of his. He had been working in advertising before. He was unhappy with that and decided to make a life change, and he opened the store going on 19 years ago with just his own personal collection, and it grew from there.

Q: How do you acquire some of these objects? I assume that you just can’t get a lion from anywhere.

A: You would be surprised with what you can find on ebay! We get the majority of our products from trade shows. We also get some really unique pieces from private collections; antique pieces, heirlooms, things like that. So we get them from all over the place.

Q: What’s your favorite object that you have in the store?

A: I’m really into the meteorites. I think that our meteorite collection is pretty awesome. They’re literally the oldest things, ever. They’re all 4.5 billion years old! It totally blows my mind, and I think that’s why I like them best.

Q: Other than the meteorites, what is the oldest object that you have here?

A: Besides the meteorites, the other oldest items that we have are fossils. Some of them are literally hundreds of millions of years old. They are just so excellently preserved and a wonderful reminder of what life used to be like on Earth, the origins of life. Those are also really stunning pieces that we have.