17 October 2022 - ELTHAM TOY WALL - NEW ZEALAND

 

ELTHAM TOY WALL

 - NEW ZEALAND -

G'day folks,

What began as a makeshift lost and found, now exists as a unique art installation.  

This quirky little attraction in the town of Eltham in Taranaki began in the 1970s. That’s when local resident Faye Young discovered a few discarded toys in the neighboring Bridger Park. 

 

Instead of leaving the toys discarded about the park, she placed them in a nearby wall between her house and the park. Young hoped that the toy’s owners would be able to easily find their items at the wall. Instead, more toys appeared in the crevices of the wall. Mrs. Young and her family decided to cement the toys into the wall, creating a permanent wall of toys. Now, thousands of toys can be found along the wall to be enjoyed by visitors both young and old. 

6 September 2019 - ANTIQUE TOY AND ART MUSEUM IN MAINE

ANTIQUE TOY AND ART 

MUSEUM IN MAINE

G'day folks,

Well, here is another extraordinary collection. It's a toy museum in a former tavern and is the expression of one man's life pursuit of the aesthetic power of cartoon imagery. 

On the shelf of a former tavern, now jam-packed with thousands of antique toys, a small plastic dog toy looks out with huge plaintive eyes.

It’s Bimbo, Betty Boop’s dog and boyfriend from 1930 until 1933. His character was banned in 1933 by censorship laws that felt that the cross species love affair smacked of beastiality. As the museums creator John Fawcett is quick to point out, his collection isn’t necessarily for kids.

While it may feature antique and vintage toys, it is also not about nostalgia, according to Fawcett. “It’s just been a lifelong search to find images I like. It’s not about nostalgia for me, it’s about aesthetics.” said Fawcett to the Bangor Daily News.

A professor of graphic design at the University of Connecticut for 32 years, Fawcett is in his early 70s, and has been collecting cartoon images, toys and other items that appeal to his artistic sense for over 50 years. The Lone Ranger, Felix the cat, Popeye and many other familiar characters fill the collection, but there are some purposeful absences as well. Winnie the Pooh is notably missing because John just doesn’t like him.

As a child who grew up before the time of television, Fawcett went to the movies for entertainment. To remember the huge cartoon images he saw on the silver screen, he would run home and draw them from memory. The tradition carried on even as Fawcett grew up. As an adult, Fawcett found himself competing and collaborating with another toy collector in New York. 

The two collectors would find rare toys and send each other drawings of their new acquisitions. If one found a second copy of something rare they would send it to the other collector. (These childhood drawings also formed the basis for Fawcett’s colorful, psychedelic paintings of cartoon characters which are featured in the adjoining gallery.)

One curious item in the collection is an image of Mickey Mouse riding a goose with a trident and bomb in hand, an image created by Disney for the Floyd Bennett Airfield in New York during WWII. (This insignia can be seen briefly on the side of the planes in King Kong.) Disney made many variations on these military images using almost every character in its roster. Another item in the museum’s collection is a bomb with Donald Duck’s smiling face on it. Yet another example of how cartoons aren’t always kid stuff.

Kept as a private collection for years, when Fawcett retired and moved to Maine, he opened his collection up as Fawcett’s Antique Toy and Art Museum. Opened in 1997, the Toy Museum and Fawcett have been going strong for nearly twenty years, collecting toys and images that strike on the power of cartoon imagery and his sense of aesthetics.

The museum is attached to an art gallery and shop that sells, you guessed it, antique toys.

Clancy's comment: It never ceases to amaze me as to what people collect, and the lengths they go to add to their collection.

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29 August 2019 - TIN TOY MUSEUM IN YOKOHAMA, JAPAN

TIN TOY MUSEUM 

IN YOKOHAMA, JAPAN

G'day folks,

I've included a few collections and museums on this blog but here is something different. Yep, more tin toys than you can shake a clapping monkey at. 

A random walk through the narrow residential streets of Yokohama can often lead to unexpected discoveries. Like stumbling on an unassuming little house that’s a toy museum, home of one of the world’s largest vintage tin toy collections.

In the tight space of a couple of rooms the club director’s “Kitahara Collection” can fill you with nostalgia, and maybe a touch of the creeps.

The toys range from the 1890s through the 1960s, a kind of “golden age” for tin toys. Most of them were made in Japan, and all were amassed by Teruhisa Kitahara, the author of several books on vintage toys and one of the world’s preeminent collectors. Kitahara has been hunting down tin toys and wind-ups since the 1970s, and the examples on display in his little museum are all part of his personal collection.

 The museum, which includes a small shop where you can buy some tin toys for yourself, was opened to the public in 1986. It became a way for Kitahara to share his spinning acrobats, chiming monkeys, toy planes, and mini railroads for all toy fans. There are some quirks in the collection too, like the Creature from the Black Lagoon staring out at all the toys from a glass case on the floor. Maybe he’s the security guard.

Clancy's comment: Yep, shake, rattle and roll.

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23 August 2019 - A COLLECTION OF LOST TOYS IN THE UKRAINE

A COLLECTION OF LOST 

TOYS IN THE UKRAINE

G'day folks,

Here is an interesting tale about a Ukraine alleyway that has become its own little island of forgotten things. 

  

This typical urban courtyard in one of Lviv’s oldest neighborhoods has become a makeshift museum, and home to an unlikely exhibition of toys that were tragically forgotten and left behind. The collection began when a resident of one of the surrounding apartment blocks at 1 Mukachivska St found two lost toys nearby, and placed them under a small roof in the shared courtyard, in case the owner returned to collect them. 

The owner never did come back, and an unlikely shrine to lost things was born. Ever since, the little corner has attracted all manner of junk and former plaything, creating a melancholy little space that is nonetheless fascinating for its bittersweet looks.   

In the years since, the collection has grown as residents of the apartment blocks surrounding the yard have given a temporary home to hundreds of plush animals, dolls, musical instruments, figurines, and bicycles. One of the things that makes this amazing little found museum all the more stunning is the fact that all of the found items are arranged like they  are part of some little shrine. Rather than being carelessly tossed into a pile in the corner, the various toys and tchotchkes are placed on rickety shelves and pieces of furniture. 

 The collection at the yard is constantly changing, as new toys are added to the collection, and existing ones are collected by their owner, or find their way to a new home. 

Clancy's comment: I know a few kids who would spend hours playing here. Did you notice that this area has a sandpit?

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4 September 2018 - TOYS FOR KIDS - 1850-1950

TOYS FOR KIDS 

- 1850-1950 -

G'day folks,

Ever wondered what kids played with a long time ago? I never have, but check out these cute items which are on sale on e-Bay.

Clancy's comment: There ya go. Interesting, eh? And, I guess these do not include the things that poorer kids played with. No doubt, they'd have made up things. The mini classroom was unexpected.

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25 October 2017 - A WONDERFUL TOY COLLECTION

A WONDERFUL 

TOY COLLECTION

G'day folks,

Welcome to a collection to beat all collections. 

What is it that makes someone start a collection which alters the course of their entire life? For Mel Birnkrant, it was an iron Mickey bank he saw at the Paris flea market in 1958. His hotel room rent was $30 a month and the toy was $10. It was in that moment, at the one and only Marché aux Puces, Mel was first bitten by the collecting bug. It would take him many more years to understand how that toy had such power over him.

The purchase spurred a lifetime of toy collecting, turning objects not intended to be “art” and elevating them to that very level. “This simple act of recognizing that this object I had found was art, in 1958, when to all the rest of the world, it was not, and standing behind my conviction by paying what was, then, a painful price, I experienced all the emotional satisfaction that I would have if I had actually created this powerful object myself,” writes Mel. “Recognizing the visual merits of humble works, intended merely to amuse children and later be discarded, became, for me, an act of creativity. I could sense my entire body tingling, and, ever so slightly, levitating.”

Mel’s private collection in his home in upstate New York doesn’t seem of this earth. It’s impossible to wrap your brain around the idea that this “Mouse Heaven”, as he calls it, a mind-boggling museum of Mickey Mouse and other toys of pre-World War II comic characters, was created by just one man. It is a genius work of lost art, a museum of dreams.

There is no doubt Mel Birnkrant is an artist in the same way that Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein are artists– Andy with his supermarket products and Roy with his old comic books. Mel also made toys himself over the years and invented the iconic Baby Face doll as well as The Outer Space Men action figures. From 1964 to 1986, Birnkrant designed toys for the Colorforms Company.

Here are some more pictures of this grand collection.

Clancy's comment: Mel is obviously a big kid at heart, but there's nothing wrong with that. 

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