Toy Museum

Current Events in the Toy Museum

Exhibitions

You may find information on current events and exhibitions in the Toy Museum on the German website.

Current Events and Exhibitions
<http://www.museen.nuernberg.de/spielzeugmuseum/index.html>

Guided Tours

German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Czech, Polish and Japanese.

Audio Tour in Ten Languages
<http://www.museums.nuremberg.de/toy-museum/guided-tours.html>

Our Special Service:
Reading List "Toys and Playing" for Download

Almost daily, the Toy Museum receives requests for book recommendations on the big, colourful and varied world of playing and toys. We have therefore compiled a reading list which can be downloaded as a pdf-file free of charge. (The reading list is only available in a German language version.)

 Download Reading List
<http://www.museums.nuremberg.de/toy-museum/download/download_spielzeugmuseum/LiteraturlisteSpielzeug.pdf>

General Information on the Toy Museum

Nuremberg has always been a toy city of world renown, its tradition stretching from the "Dockenmacher" (doll makers) of mediaeval times to outstanding tin figure manufacturers and numerous tin toy producers in the industrial age, up to the International Toy Fair, the world's most important trade fair of its kind.

Nuremberg Toy Museum in the very heart of the Old Town is part of this rich cultural heritage. Its comprehensive and exceptionally high quality collection spans the time from antiquity to the present day, with a strong focus on the past two centuries. Since opening in 1971, the museum, which is based on the collection of Lydia and Paul Bayer, has attracted more than four million visitors from all over the world.

The four floors behind the Renaissance façade of a Nuremberg town residence encompass the entire variety of historic toys. Wooden toys await visitors on the ground floor. On the first floor, dolls and exquisite dolls' houses allow a glimpse of life in centuries past. The world's most comprehensive collection of E. P. Lehmann toys tells the fascinating history of this famous German family company. A "Tin World" is presented on the second floor. Vehicles, toy train sets and steam engines are testimony to the exceptional role played by Nuremberg toy producers in the field of technical toys.

Recent toy history may be found on the top floor, in an attractively designed exhibition space. Exhibits go from the makeshift toys of the immediate post-war years to the high-tech toys of today: Barbie, Lego and Playmobil, as well as Schuco cars (displayed in a fifties exhibition stand), robots, space toys and fantasy figures. Effectively staged with state-of-the-art lighting technology, the lively "toy show cases" mirror important social developments. Pocket-size dioramas invite visitors on a journey through the recent past at six time stations.

The museum rounds off its range with publications on the history of toys, with guided tours, collectors' meetings, talks, puppet theatre, games days, children's birthday parties and a well-stocked museum shop.

By the Way:
The museum's ground floor exhibition area and the children's area "Kids on Top" on the top floor may be hired for events. You may find further information concerning hire on the Toy Museum's German website.

Hire
<http://www.museen.nuernberg.de/spielzeugmuseum/vermietungen.html>