|
|
|
|
|
Girls photographed with dress-up accessories
at the Strong National Museum of Play.
Popular toys, personalized items and nature
and outdoor-themed gifts are good selling
at the attraction’s shops.
|
hile toy museums bring out the kid in all of us, they play an important role in teaching visitors about the history of toys and their impact on our society and culture. Toy museum gift shops carry this message over with the merchandise they offer in the stores.
Sandi Russell has worked at the Toy & Miniature Museum of Kansas City for more than 25 years. The museum, which consists of a 38-room house, resides on the campus of University of Missouri-Kansas City and contains two main collections. The first collection focuses on antique toys such as dolls, marbles, trains and planes. The second collection consists of scaled-down working miniatures that attract collectors. As operations manager and museum store manager, Russell works to help the 25,000-30,000 visitors per year appreciate the history behind toys.
“Our store isn’t very big, it’s only 585 square feet, but we have a great deal of merchandise that brings out the kid in everyone,” Russell explained. “The most popular merchandise in the gift shop are marbles. The museum has a collection of over one million marble pieces, so anything marble related sells including games such as Chinese Checkers, Shoot-A-Loop and marble necklaces.”
The shop earns about $60,000 per year and all proceeds go back to the museum. The museum also hosts two marble tournaments per year, and in 2008, they broke the Guinness Book of World Records when they hosted a marble tournament that had the most marble players in one place.
“Marbles is such a multi-generational game that transcends genders,” Russell noted. “Grandparents bring their kids and grandkids and every generation is smiling. We teach marble games here, and both boys and girls learn how to play the old-fashioned way for a while. It really is a lot of fun.”
|
|
|
A book and toy display at a
Strong National Museum of Play store.
The museum has trouble keeping good-selling
Berenstain Bears merchandise in its store. |
|
Other classic games that have won over visitors include Jacks, Tiddlywinks and Dominoes. Since the museum offers rotating exhibits, the gift shop does carry merchandise for each exhibit. Usually, Russell sets up a separate section for the traveling exhibits.
“In 2010, we will have a Barbie exhibit, so that means the store will have lots of pink. While we do not sell the doll itself, we do sell carrying cases, mugs, pins and bling jewelry that Barbie would wear,” Russell said. “We try to keep our prices low so that even a child coming with a school group can bring home a toy.”
At the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y., Assistant Gift Store Manager Jessica Silva oversees two shops. The 2,500-square-foot Everything for Play gift store not only offers a variety of popular toys and personalized items, but it also carries merchandise that represents the museum’s traveling or permanent exhibits. The second shop, Dancing Wings, targets small children with popular toys and outdoor-themed merchandise that reflects the museum’s butterfly exhibit.
“One of the most popular items in the 1,600-square-foot Dancing Wings is Berenstain Bears merchandise. In August of 2008, we got a Berenstain Bears Exhibit, and since then we have sold more than 2,500 books. We have a hard time keeping Berenstain merchandise in the store.”
In the Everything for Play shop, Silva carries classic toys including Slinky, Tiddlywinks and Aurora’s Yoo Hoo animals, which when pressed make chirping noises.
|
|
|
|
|
Shoppers take a look at a sweatshirt
at the Strong National Museum of Play.
The store carries merchandise that relates
to both permanent and temporary exhibits.
|
As home to the National Toy Hall of Fame and Museum, the Strong National Museum of Play exhibits some of the most revered toys in history. This year, the original Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy collection found a home at the Toy Hall of Fame and so the Everything for Play gift shop started to carry Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls and merchandise. The gift shop carries merchandise from each inductee.
Traveling exhibits also get space in the gift shop. This year, the museum opened a Super Heroes exhibit, so the gift shops sold action figures, T-shirts and other accessory items.
“We have a Toy Hall of Fame wall in the gift shop, so we place all these popular collections on that wall,” Silva said.
“We make sure to have merchandise from all the exhibits. We want people to not only learn about toys, but we want them to have a chance to take them home and enjoy them as well.”
Items that are popular but not reflective of exhibits include personalized merchandise. Personalized placemats, pencils, mugs and other items remain favorites with visitors.
“I think what makes our personalized merchandise so popular is that we can accommodate any name,” Silva noted. “Munchkin is the company that does the personalization, and they will custom print merchandise. People can order the named products at the store and we get it sent to them.”
Sparking a child’s natural curiosity is the mission at A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village in Salem, Ore. The museum, named for the inventor of Erector Sets, contains 15 hands-on interactive rooms focusing on science, the arts and the humanities. The gift shop, which totals 220 square feet, earns between $32,000 and $34,000 per year, all of which is returned to the museum for educational programs.
“The museum is meant to inspire curiosity and innovation in children, and the gift shop shares that same purpose,” explained Assistant Director Kim Baldwin. “We carry educational toys that represent our exhibits. The popularity of toys depends upon what season we are in. If we are in school trip season, it is the pocket toys that are priced $5 and under that are most popular. When parents come with their children, it is the puzzles, the magnetic and science kits that really sell.”
Since the gift shop is small, Baldwin displays all the pocket toys on one shelf so that the children can easily see the merchandise. Merchandise that she does not want the smaller children to touch is placed on higher shelves. They can see the merchandise, but they need an adult to take it down. Baldwin also carries a line of wooden toys as well as large-size floor puzzles.
“If we have an exhibit of a toy in the museum, we will have the same type of toy in the gift shop. We have a 5-foot-tall foam puzzle that is a complete skeleton selling in the gift shop, and we have an exhibit like that in the museum. We know if kids like what they see here, they want to play with it at home too. Parents love the educational theme behind the toys, so they are happy with the merchandise as well.”
As Director of the National Yo Yo Museum, Bob Malowney meets with toy enthusiasts each day. The Yo Yo Museum was founded in 1993, and displays yo yos from the 1920s to the present day. The museum also displays a timeline of yo yos and has on hand exhibits of the oldest and newest yo yos including championship and light-up yo yos. The museum resides next to Malowney’s 8,000-square-foot specialty item department store, Bird in Hand.
“Visitors love to come and see how yo yos have changed through the years. The most recent change has been the ball bearing assembly, which allows yo yo enthusiasts to learn and develop new tricks easily.”
The museum and the Bird in Hand store back up to each other, but the museum has a separate entrance. The museum gift shop occupies about 380 square feet of retail space in the department store. The only items in the museum gift shop are yo yos.
|
|
|
|
|
Strong National Museum of Play,
Rochester, N.Y. Assistant Gift Store
Manager Jessica Silva. Silva oversees
two shops, and the stores stock a wide
variety of merchandise for children.
|
“We carry yo yos of different colors and some bear the museum’s name,” noted Malowney. “We try to accommodate everyone’s tastes. We have yo yos for beginners as well as experts, and many of our yo yos can be adjusted as a player’s level of expertise increases.”
At one time, the Louis Marx Toy Company was the largest toy manufacturing company in the world. In the 1950s, one-third of all toys in the United States were made by Marx. Although Marx had factories throughout the world, the one around Moundsville, W.V., was the site for the production of one of the most popular toys in history – the Big Wheel. At its height of productivity, the West Virginia plant made 7,000 Big Wheels each day. The Official Marx Toy Museum in Moundsville welcomes more than 5,000 visitors per year and has on display the best loved and most remembered toys that the Marx Company produced from 1919 through 1980. Visitors typically spend about two and a half hours in the museum taking the tour and watching movies about Marx.
“Most of these toys are known by generations,“ said Francis Turner, owner of the Marx Toy Museum. “For example, Marx manufactured the Big Wheel, Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, metal dollhouses and farm sets with plastic accessories and animals, and Johnny Quest action figures. Pretty much any popular toy back in the 50s and 60s and 70s came from Marx.”
The museum contains a 600-square-foot gift shop. The store attracts collectors in that it carries original Marx toys as well as reissued Marx toys. However, the most popular item in the museum store is the DVD that tells the story of Marx Toys and its contribution to the toy industry.
“Most people, when they come to the museum, already know the toys, but what fascinates them is the story behind them. The DVDs give them that sense of history and that is what they want to take home.”
|
SGN Newsletter
