Former Victoria wax museum director selling off hundreds of wax heads

Twelve years since the Royal London Wax Museum shut its doors in downtown Victoria, the museum's former director is finally ready to let go of the hundreds of wax heads that once populated the Inner Harbour attraction.

Ken Lane's basement is filled with the heads of more than 300 of humanity's most prominent figures, like Queen Victoria and Mahatma Gandhi.

Lane operated the museum for decades before it was forced to close in 2010. Now, he's selling off what remains of the collection.

"Victoria is not the tourism town it once was," Lane tells CTV News, adding that he's received inquiries about his collection from as far afield as Prince George, B.C., and Winnipeg.

But the collection isn't selling cheap. Each figure can cost upwards of $30,000 to produce and carefully ship.

Each human hair is applied to the beeswax heads strand by strand, and the eyes are imported from Germany. The overall effect is startlingly realistic.

"Whatever happens to them, wherever they get re-established, you want to be with them and sort of babysit them for a while," Lane says.

The former director did not provide his target price for the collection, but said the number is firm in his head.

"If it's not suitable for the figures, it just won't happen," he said.