I also have a fold-out timeline ruler bought at Noah's Ark in Hong Kong (true, a life-sized replica). It starts with the birth of Jesus... which begs the question of where Noah came in.
Recently in Amsterdam at the Rijksmuseum I acquired a more useful 2m ruler, 2000 years of paintings in chronological order. Go on, ask me which came first, French illustrated manuscripts or Mayan murals?
Around the house we have a tin container in the shape of a classic American diner, a pencil sharpener inside a small suit of French armour (I doubt there's a pencil in the house), cool rocket ships, the usual fridge magnets (Evita on a matchbox, a Degas dancer, Andy Warhol's Jackie O etc), odd ballpoints (one from the Alamo shaped like a musket), small but interesting clocks which no longer work, a tea towel with characters from Dickens (bought at the author's birthplace in Portsmouth) and an almost frameable one of the Grand Pavilion in Brighton.
Incidentally, in his bedroom the late Dalvanius Prime of Poi E fame had a magnificent framed portrait of Tutankhamun's head on a black background. It was a bath towel.
It's a curious thing but the higher up the cultural totem pole you go, the more the tat in gift shops. At Shakespeare's Globe in London I bought the blood-splattered tea towel which reads "Out damned spot!" from Macbeth.
And don't even start on gift shops in the Louvre (the Mona Lisa on everything you wouldn't want) or all the Rembrandt-imprinted stuff at the Rijksmuseum. They have handbags, umbrellas, jigsaw puzzles, earrings, pencils and rubbers, writing paper...
Yes, we buy serious things like brochures, books, small artworks and proper souvenirs, but the cheap stuff - Nasa oven mitts like astronauts' gloves - is more fun.
At the Van Gogh Museum they had an earring - a keyring attached to a plastic ear, a classy homage to the painter who sliced off a bit of his lobe - but I got something even more worthless. It's a "made in China" music box modelled on the bed in his painting The Bedroom (of his cheap digs in Arles). It plays Don McLean's Starry Starry Night. It's kitschy and pointless but was funny, cheap, portable and is a conversation-starter.
They missed an opportunity, though: a bobble-head Vincent with a bandaged ear?