One hundred gifts sent to presidents - including an eagle somebody made with beer can tabs for Gerald Ford and a chain saw sculpture "resembling" Jimmy Carter - go on display Saturday.
The exhibit at the Herbert Hoover presidential library and museum, called "Weird and Wonderful: Gifts Fit for a President," runs through May.Many of the gifts have never been displayed before, some with good reason.
There's a 110-year-old lemon carved to look like a pig that was given to Rutherford B. Hayes. "It looks a little like you'd expect a 110-year-old lemon to look," said museum director Richard N. Smith.
Half are serious gifts from heads of state, some astonishingly ostentatious. The other half are simply astonishing.
Some, like a wooden chicken President Roosevelt got, aren't necessarily from admirers.
A serious gift, a Madonna painted on a wooden egg, was given to President Bush by Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Other items on display include a peach pit carved in John F. Kennedy's likeness. "We've got it mounted and we have a magnifying device so you can see the carving," said Smith.
There's also a montage of world leaders made of cigar wrappers given to Theodore Roosevelt, a dinosaur's footprint sent to Richard Nixon and a rocking chair made of bottle caps given to Harry Truman.