The 9/11 Museum gift shop is cashing in on souvenir sales — particularly “heart rocks,” which are selling faster than they can be restocked.
Available in various sizes, the rocks bear words such as “United in Hope,” “Remember” and “Honor.” The largest one, priced at $39, has the Virgil quote, “No day shall erase you from the memory of time,” which is inscribed on a museum wall in front of an unseen repository with unidentified human remains from the September 11 terror attacks.
Last week, the rocks had sold out from the gift shop’s display cases.
“They sell faster than I can make them,” Georgia artist Red Sandlin told The Post.
Sandlin, who fashions the rocks from clay, describes herself as a “one-person operation.”
“It’s just me. I can only make so many for them at a time, and they sell out,” she said. “I have an ongoing order. I’ve been very grateful they’ve been such a hit with the museum. People are responding to them and it’s wonderful.”
Sandlin would not say what the museum pays her for the rocks.
“They buy it from me at a wholesale price and mark it up for the museum,” she said.
The gift shop also sells a wide array of mass-produced products, including T-shirts, hoodies, caps, coffee mugs, earrings, scarves, neckties, dog coats, toys and dishware, along with books and CDs. Items range in cost from a $3 bookmark to a $225 United We Stand blanket. Signs say “net proceeds” support the museum’s operation.
Museum spokesman Michael Frazier would not say how much money the gift shop has raised. Officials announced that more than 300,000 people have visited the museum since it opened to the public on May 21.