Collecting is a way of creating order out of disorder, of making sense of some of the uncertainties that mark our lives. Sometimes, its origin is circumstantial, the product of chance and accident, and not always an institutionalized, rational, and calculated practice. Among them were the former crew members of the German ship SMS Dresden during their internment on Quiriquina Island between 1915 and 1919, amid the First World War. On their stay in this foreign and remote place, far away from their homeland and culture, while building a road, they faced unearthing an archaeological site. The excavation yielded hundreds of unknown and exotic objects, and their response was to set up a small museum that displayed the specimens through a visual logic that made them approachable and understandable. In creating the collection, uncertainty was overcome. This essay reflects on the phenomenon of collecting in culture and human life through a series of photographs and relating to this remarkable event.