Wax figures of 44 U.S. presidents and their first ladies will be put up for auction in mid-January as a museum that housed them for over half-a-century closed due to dwindling visitors.

"The money coming in was not enough to match taxes and payrolls," Max Felty, owner of the Hall of Presidents and First Ladies Museum in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, told Xinhua via phone why the museum was shuttered in November last year.

"We've been thinking of the decision for several years," Felty said. "We'd thought the 2016 presidential race would generate more interests, but it didn't."

The figures, along with other museum contents, will be auctioned off on Jan. 14 at the 1863 Inn of Gettysburg, six days before Donald Trump is sworn in as the new U.S. President.

The museum, on Gettyburg's Baltimore Street since 1957, is billed as the world's only complete wax collection of American presidents and their first ladies.

Starting with George Washington, the life-sized wax versions of the presidents are in chronological order, complete with detail down to the knuckles.

According to the museum's website, the figures' heads are made of a liquid vinyl plastic (with eyes purchased from an optical supply company), while the torsos are made of Fiberglass and Styrofoam. The "fully articulating arms" are made of wood.

source: Xinhua