The Toy Museum

On our second day in Nuremburg we went to the toy museum which was easily the most impressive museum we went to. There were only really two annoying things, which was that we weren’t allowed to take any photos of the toys and because it was all based around German toys, so there was a noticeable absence of LEGO.

The first room we went to was a special exhibition dedicated to the first wooden toys that were made in Nuremburg. These included moving toys and building blocks including a set with special blocks so you can build the big tower in the castle.

Then there was a room that had educational toys and other toys designed to teach children things like how to behave in public or to watch for cars on the road.

Then, there was a section dedicated to dolls and doll houses/ play kitchens. Even though I wasn’t all that interested in the dolls, some of the kitchens and houses were amazing. There was even a kitchen made for the Bavarian royal family’s children and had a working stove where you could boil water and cook!

The next area was dedicated to Lehmann toys and optical toys. Lehmann is a German toy brand which produced metal wind-up toys. Some of them were really amazing and there was also the very politically incorrect Momo he Dancing Coon, which was a black man who danced when you wound him up. There was also a small exhibition of LGB trains, a branch of Lehmann designed to combat the model train market, but using very large model trains to open up a new market.

Next there were toys like pedal cars and bikes including a car that dad identified as one he had when he was young and also one he identified as like one he wanted as a kid. Some of these were really intricate and they were all really well preserved, without much rust and not many dents.

Then there was a section of tin-plate and metal toys like cars and trains. There was also some Meccano and other systems a lot like Meccano. There was also a large model railway which was unfortunately not running.
We were all disappointed that we couldn’t spend more time at the toy museum, but left fascinated by all the toys and the whole museum.

Posted at 8:53pm