For over 25 years, Rick Porter packed his Onset basement with thermometers from all over the world.

His underground museum, which he called “The World’s Only Thermometer Museum,” had been featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not, The Guinness Book of World Records and countless newspaper and magazine articles.

But today, only a handful of those thermometers remain in Onset, and the museum where the motto was "always open and always free" is coming to a close.

Porter said about five years ago, a majority of his 5,115 thermometers were bought by Accuweather, the global weather forecasting service headquartered in State College, Penn. In the five years since, he's kept the museum at his home up-and-running with about 900 remaining thermometers that Accuweather was set to take at a later date. Recently, in the last week in April, that day arrived.

”I knew some time they would have to go somewhere and it seemed like a good opportunity," he said, noting that he sold his collection for a fraction of its true value, but that for him, it was never about the money. "It's taken me to places I never would have imagined.”

Porter has collected thermometers in all 50 states and 12 countries, from places like Italy, Spain and Morrocco and in Central American nations such as Bolivia and Nicaragua.

"They don't have many thermometers down in the Caribbean," Porter said. "You have to look around to find them."

Porter has kept a few dozen thermometers, one of his favorites being a double-tubed (which means you can read it from any angle) thermometer from the only thermometer maker in Australia.

One of Porter's favorite memories is when he was flown out to California with his grandson to a dedication ceremony for the world's largest thermometer at a restaurant in Baker. The 134-foot high thermometer—33 feet shorter than Niagara Falls—goes up to 134 degrees, commemorating what is widely regarded as the highest recorded temperature on earth in nearby Death Valley on July 10, 1913.

His collection has gotten him TV spots on weather forecasts in Boston, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. He has been included in an episode of the History Channel's "Modern Marvels" devoted to measurement.  He even had a BBC film crew come from London to his house, and has been featured in the centerfold of a magazine in Milan, Italy, where Galileo invented the thermometer in 1593.

Porter said he began collecting thermometers about 35 years ago as he was finishing his career as a science teacher in Lexington. He acquired most of the thermometers at yard sales and some antique shops. He even remembered his first thermometer he got as a kid in the 1940s, which was a Mobil gasoline thermometer from his uncle's filling station in New Hampshire.

Porter said he was upset to see the thermometers go, but knows they are going to a good place with a lot of visibility.  According to Porter, he gave tours to about 1,000 people in the 25 years his museum was open, and he made a lot of friends along the way.

"I'm amazed at what I was able to accomplish just by collection something," he said.