While B and the boys were visiting the Military Museum at the Fortress of Suomenlinna, I went to the Toy Museum. It was extremely fascinating and I thoroughly enjoyed myself!
The Toy Museum is a private collection of toys dating from the 1830s through to the 1990s. It consisted of four connected rooms on the ground floor of the owner's home, which also housed a café and a small museum shop. I was able to read excellent English translations of the museum's signs on my phone (courtesy of the museum's website, not Google Translate, thankfully!).
I learnt many interesting things about the history of various toys — everything from dolls, teddy bears and G.I. Joe to Moomins, Trolls and Lego. There was a strong European (Finnish in particular) focus, and I loved seeing how the toys of each era revealed so much about what was happening in society at the time (eg. war, space exploration, etc). I even bought a book by the museum's owner, Petra Tandefelt, so I could find out more!
Here's a selection of the SUBSTANTIAL amount of photos I took...
My museum ticket cost €7.The giant teddy bear at the entrance to the museum. Did you know teddy bears were so-named due to President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt refusing to shoot an American black bear that others had caught for him to shoot on a hunting trip in 1902?The first room.Looking from the end of the first room through to the second and third rooms.There were several dollhouses. I learnt that making dollhouses to 1:12 scale is a more recent idea and they didn't care about scale in the old days... hence some dolls being too big or small compared to the furniture etc!These shoes were about 5cm long, and there was a smaller pair beside them. Presumably hand-woven so would have been fiddly work!A cabinet of nightmare material...... especially these two!The oldest doll in the museum.A toy based on an East German animated TV show character called Sandmännchen (Little Sandman). I googled it and discovered it's the longest-running animated TV show in history, as well as the TV show with the most episodes in history (22000+)!A pull-along toy that looked like it would bang its drum as the wheels went around.This puzzle looked challenging!Dolls made in Finland.I really wanted to see what this one did when wound up!Moomins — classic book characters by Finnish author/illustrator Tove Jansson.Trolls! Apparently this is what they originally looked like, and the bright-haired ones in the 1990s were Chinese knock-offs.The oldest teddy bears had button eyes.Egg peasants!Mechanical robots from Japan.G.I. Joe.Lilli, a German doll who was the model for Barbie (though was only half her size).The original Mickey and Minnie Mouse!Thanks, Mr Bear!
I think I enjoyed this much more than I would have enjoyed the Military Museum, so it was a great idea for us to split up for a couple of hours!
