The local spot to get your hearts, brains, bodies and more on the cheap

Preserved sheep hearts and cow eyes. Dummies for CPR and vials of fake drugs. Anatomical models of human skeletons, brains, lungs — just about every body part you can imagine. 

The Anatomy Warehouse in Skokie supplies more than 5,000 of those kinds of educational medical products to hospitals, classrooms and first responders all over the world, and it is opening its doors to the public this weekend for its second Clearance-palooza.

Running from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, May 30, at 8047 Monticello Ave., the event will offer deep discounts on the warehouse’s slightly damaged, incomplete, customer-returned and otherwise overstocked items, said Liz Huff, CEO of The Anatomy Warehouse.

“I think of the garage sale certainly as a way for us to create space in our warehouse, but to do it in a way that avoids things just ending up in a landfill,” Huff said. “Beyond that, it’s just rehoming otherwise awesome models that would otherwise sit in boxes.”

Or to put it another way:

“It’s sort of like Toy Story — you think about when Andy’s mom put the toys in the attic, you’re like, ‘Man they’re just going to be in the dark forever.’ These anatomical models need to be in someone’s hands, loved and used.”

The Anatomy Warehouse’s first Clearance-palooza drew more than 50 shoppers in 2025, many of whom were med students, science teachers, artist or people looking to up the ante of their Halloween decorations, Huff said.

But this Saturday’s sale is set to be even bigger than the last. Visitors can buy a range of items, from $1 vintage charts to $40 medical simulators to $100 full-size skeletons that otherwise run for $250 each, Huff said. 

Huff recalled she was one of the Anatomy Warehouse’s first few employees soon after it opened in Skokie in 2005. A philosophy graduate working at Blockbuster at the time, she was searching for an interesting job accessible by bike when she saw a wanted ad for the company on Craigslist. 

At the time the company still sold skeletons for Halloween decorations, but then it pivoted to refocused on importing and then distributing dissection specimens, anatomical models, medical training simulators and even custom-designed diagrams. 

The company has only grown since, Huff said. It apparently relocated to a warehouse in Evanston in 2013, but eventually outgrew the space and moved back to Skokie in 2023. 

It now operates out of an 11,000-square-foot facility where staff plan to knock down interior walls to create even more room to meet the still rising demand, Huff said. 

While their main customers are typically educational institutions like universities, community colleges and mortuary science programs, Huff said they’ve also supplied fake skulls to AMC’s hit television series “The Walking Dead,” and HBO’s “The Last of Us” series just put in an order. 

Inside the Skokie warehouse, shelves reach near the ceiling with cardboard boxes full of items like preserved frogs and fetal pigs. Posters, the kind one might see on the walls of their doctor’s office, line shelves. Another rack stores the fake arms nurses use to practice drawing blood. 

Huff noted that Anatomy Warehouse is an e-commerce business, so her staff doesn’t often get to meet their customers in person. In that way, Huff said the Clearance-palooza is a rewarding opportunity for the company to have conversations with people about the many odd products they sell. 

“We love what we do’ we love what we sell,” she said. “We know our customers do too, but when you can really have that face-to-face moment of joy when you see somebody is so excited about getting this $10 brain, and they’re talking about what they’re going to do with it, it’s just so exciting.”

The Record is a nonprofit, nonpartisan community newsroom that relies on reader support to fuel its independent local journalism.

Become a member of The Record to fund responsible news coverage for your community.

Already a member? You can make a tax-deductible donation at any time.