Toy Store

I was in the mall tonight and saw that KayBee Toys was having a giant clearance sale. I ducked in and picked up a few interesting bargains - a current rendition of the View-Master, a very handsome African American Skating Ken, and a toy that I would have coveted had I seen it on TV as a kid, "Dungeon of Doom".

Last month KayBee Toys filed for Chapter 11. On the heels of F.A.O. Schwarz filing its second bankruptcy in December, this led me to ponder how this will affect the future of toy retailing. It seems that both stores cited, at one time or another, the inability to successfully compete with discount retailers like Wal Mart, Toys R Us, and Target. Apparently most toy consumers are strict bottom-liners. But anyone who is truly a toy lover can tell you there are limits to what you will find in these megastores. If you expect to find something handmade or special, you have to search elsewhere.

The places that I find unexpected treasures tend not to be actual toy stores. In fact I can think of only two dedicated toy stores in Los Angeles that I can still rely upon to have a good and unusual range of toys. Other places that I shop for toys are independent bookstores, museum stores, stationery stores, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Olvera Street, Wacko, Wound and Wound, Marz, and the Folk Tree. Whenever I travel, I scope out the toy stores first. Unfortunately these days traveling anywhere in the U.S. means you have the same selection of toys and stores to choose from. On a trip to Ireland in the 70's, I was told that toy sales were strictly seasonal and that they were usually sold near Christmas time and only in department stores (that has changed of course with the new global economy).

The only toy stores I can remember going to as a child were in the Farmer's Market. One of them still exists and is run by the same man. Kip's Toyland has changed spaces, but has been in the Farmer's Market since 1945. Steve Lopez of the L.A.Times wrote a nice piece about the store on November 28, 2003. The other store was a doll store, now many decades defunct.

Our family shopped for toys at the local dime store (yes, it was still called that when I was a kid) or at J.J. Newberrys. And I can still spend more than a few minutes pondering the selection of cheap toys in the supermarket rack. For big occasions we would go to a department store. The toy sections were never very large, but the selection was usually of a higher quality and price.

I will miss the local mall toy store. Somehow the gigantic toy warehouse experience has never sparked me the same way a small store has. (Unless of course it is 10 PM on Christmas Eve and you are just there to watch people shop for toys...) Chances of finding something as obscure as "Dungeon of Doom" would depend on how much food and water you could carry on your quest.

Collections Management

Originally, the purpose of this blog was to provide ‘transparency’ into the process of museum making. Process, however, implies progress…forward motion. When you don’t have a site yet and you are still searching for funding, motion is mostly in a lateral direction. Much networking, many nets cast in various directions, but not a lot of forward motion – YET.

But since we have this blog, there should be some value assigned to it, and that should be KEEPING YOU INTERESTED IN US! So from time to time, we will share musings (there’s that root word again – ‘muse’, as in ‘museum’ and ‘amusement’…strangely enough ‘mousa’ the Greek root is a ‘word of unknown origin’) related to all things toy. And when we do have something of significance to report, you will hear about it here!

So, Collections Management – We recently were presented with a cache of vintage Barbie-phenalia. This substantial legacy came in much the same manner as it existed during its ‘play’ lifetime – jumbled up in various boxes and plastic cases with clothes and accessories stored higgledy-piggledy. There were two Barbies – one of ponytail vintage and one of the bubble cut era; a first edition Midge; a now de-flocked headed Ken; a molded hair Ken; a Skipper; an African American Francie; and two Tuttis. Also included in the group: a Twiggy doll.

The condition of these pieces was as one might expect after passing through the hands of three sisters, a cousin, and a child of one of the sisters. But the most disturbing part was the fact that they were all STICKY. This stickiness is due to the fact that the vinyl used to make Barbie has become toxic with age (not unlike some people). It would be ironic that a doll, customarily an object that encourages the nurturing nature of little girls, might be the source of future infertility.

But as I am past the age of worrying about my fertility I bravely proceeded to wash the dolls in the web-recommended manner (mild dishwashing soap followed by powdering in cornstarch) and prepared them for storage. I stopped short of washing hair, de-tangling with fabric softener, and setting said tresses with pencil rollers and boiling water. I will leave that work for our future Collections Manager.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! And it looks like this year is definitely for the monkeys. At the end of December we reached over 30% of our goal, with more pledges yet to come this month. Not bad for such a lofty goal and a short period of time. We have new members across the country, including two new Shiny Fire Truck members! Thanks to all of you who helped us out and will enable us to continue to grow.

Seems that we are not the only toy museum in need of financial support. A venerable institution in London, the Pollock’s Toy Museum is in jeopardy of losing the space it has occupied since the early 70’s.

Named after Benjamin Pollock, printer of toy theaters in the late 1800’s, the toy museum evolved with the vision of Marguerite Fawdry. It was she who rescued a moldering inventory of old theaters and printing plates in 1955. After reviving the toy theater business (and making some cost-effective alterations to the business when the craftsmen who built the theater parts disappeared), she diversified her product line and managed to grow the business into the recession.

At one point, with the help of toy collector friends (one being John Noble former Curator of Toys at the Museum of the City of New York), Marguerite established the toy museum upstairs from her shop. This is just a thumbnail history – you can read a more extensive one on their web site

I have visited Pollock’s every time I’ve gone to London. It has been a challenge finding it sometimes – in the 1980’s there was a Pollock’s in Covent Garden, but the next time I went to visit, it was gone. But the 1 Scala Street location was still in operation when I visited three years ago. Even my teenaged daughter was transported by the museum.

The toys who reside in the museum are not ‘collectible – MIB (mint in box)’, although I’d guess that many of them are valuable. But these are retired toys who have seen service in love from the children who played with them. They are not arranged in stiff rows or displays, but are grouped together as they would be at a child’s interrupted play. Many of the displays are haphazard and probably haven’t been rearranged in many years, but that is part of the charm of the place. It is constant and unchanging, the way we would wish our memories to be.

We hope that Pollock's will continue to thrive so that we can collaborate with them on exhibitions in the future.

You REALLY like us!

The year is barreling to the end, and here are the results of our plea for support: 16 new members so far, two of them are Shiny Fire Truck supporters! We are at 25% of our goal with FOUR days left to go!

We had a very nice write-up by Sharon Yamato who has a column in the Rafu Shimpo (a local bilingual newspaper celebrating its 100th year in existence!) The article is about year-end giving, and Yamato cites us (an unsolicited promo!) as a local fledgling organization worthy of donations. While we blush at being included in such venerable company as the Manzanar Committee , Visual Communications, and Great Leap , we do promise to deliver content and thought-provoking exhibitions that have relevance to society and the cultural arts. We received 250 visitors to our web site on Christmas Day! We believe these visits were prompted by the article. If you come visit again, don?t forget to join!

I, for one, was moved by Yamato's article to whip out my checkbook and send each of the above organizations a donation.

Gone Public

This blog has just gone public, with a touch of a button. A bit scary, but then again, how can we be supported by a public that can't find us? If you are tuning in just for a quick peek (as I do occasionally on the Blogger 'new blogs' page), go immediately to www.latdamuseum.org to understand what this blog is all about.

For those of you who tune in regularly (or semi-so), help me in welcoming another East coast member to the fold - Rol from Connecticut! Rol was one of the original founders of the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica (before he moved back East). We are planning to share insights on museum-founding (and funding) in the future.

Interesting story in the Los Angeles Times this weekend by Nick Turse regarding the new "cooperation" between the U.S. military industrial complex and the video game industry. Having lived through the "no war toys" era, it is mind-boggling to me to see how far in the other direction toys and games have gone in recent years. While it is the function of a museum to examine and explore its topics with a view to impartiality, it is sometimes difficult to keep from dropping one's jaw with incredulity at some of the games that make it to the marketplace. Of course people who feel that these games breed violence and should be banned outright, also need to look at the role of good parenting oversight as a factor.

The article states that since 1997, video games simulating combat have been "co-funded and co-developed" by the Department of Defense and the entertainment industry. Turse says that, ' With more and more "toys" that double as combat teaching tools, we are subjecting youth to a new and powerful form of propaganda. This is less a matter of simple military indoctrination than near immersion in a virtual world of war where armed conflict is not the last, but the first -- and indeed the only -- resort. The new military-entertainment complex's games may help to produce great battlefield decision makers, but they strike from debate the most crucial decisions young people can make in regard to the morality of a war -- choosing whether or not to fight and for what cause."

When I was in college, I remember the all-nighter Risk(r) games that would dominate certain dorms. It was surprising how many reasonably intelligent people I knew who were obsessed with attaining world domination -- not a diplomat among them. The same folks were also interested in games of Civil War strategy or sinking imaginary battleships. These were the war games of an era where you got your visuals of the casualties of war on the nightly news.

The question of whether war games or simulations encourage war-like behavior or not is a hot topic every year around holiday time. It is also the type of sociological impact of toys that exhibitions at LATDA will explore. Personally, I found these games as boring and tedious to follow (or play) as I find today's cutting-edge techno warfare games. Perhaps when today's youth is immersed in virtual warfare (as the dweebs of yore) they find experiencing the real thing unnecessary and unengaging (or too much work). I can't think of one of the Risk (r) fanatics I knew who actually became a member of the military industrial complex.

Operators are standing by...

Day six of our mini fundraising drive. I haven't been able to keep a running commentary this week due to a digital injury which, hopefully, was corrected by minor surgery yesterday. It is very difficult to type whilst keeping one's left forefinger elevated, but I want to acknowledge those who have responded to our plea and become members this week. THANK YOU! and we appreciate your willingness to give support to an entity which, on the surface, does not purport to fix the many local, national and global inequities that other worthy organizations need funding for. There are still 18 days left to reach our goal of $4,000.00!

We hesitate to quantify our early results in cold hard cash. Looked at dispassionately, the actual figure looks anemic. But to spin this in the most positive light, we’ve reached about 13% of our goal! I promised you transparency...this is how fundraising works: little by little.

We realize that there are greater things out there than the founding of one little toy museum. We just hope to tap into a little of the latte and movie money set aside for pleasures of the body and soul. And we do hope that once we are up and running, our exhibits will provide quality food for thought… and action. We will explore issues such as the social impact of toy design and manufacturing, and the history of play in educational systems. We will balance our fun with insight.

On the reporting side, however, we are happy to announce that new memberships have come in from a wide range of supporters from coast to coast. Thank you to Karla, Steve and Jeanette in Los Angeles; Ann Marie from Northern California; and Louise from Massachusetts. Pledges are coming by mail from New Mexico and Oregon, and one is being hand-delivered from London on New Year's Eve!

On the business side of LATDA, we recently had a wonderful local find. We procured seven vintage board games (some delightfully obscure), a View-Master(tm) complete with a box of reels, and a large box of HO gauge railroad track.

The games look as if they were played, but were in remarkable condition, including the boxes. I remember one of the games, "Go For Broke(R)”, by sight, but don't recall ever playing it. The object of the game is the opposite of Monopoly(R) - the winner is the first player to spend a million dollars. I will have to check through the cards to see if one of the ways to do this is to endow a museum.

Fully funded

Recently a new friend of LATDA was sharing the Museum with another friend who asked her if we had been funded yet or received any grants. This seems to be the first question on everyone’s mind; where is our money coming from? It is a prudent question for anyone to ask before deciding to commit any of his/her own hard-earned cash to anything. But let me tell you about founding a museum – there are many different ways to do it. I have worked at two with very different origins.

One was started by a very wealthy individual with a personal art collection. He had many wealthy friends who were happy to pool their business talents to help him get his museum up and running. He gave his friends and family positions of authority and searched for the right pool of museum-making talent along the way.

The other was started by a group of WWII veterans who felt they had an important story to share with the public. They didn’t have any museum background, but they had very strong beliefs in what they were doing. Their first fundraiser was a ‘casino night’ in an old warehouse. They were smart enough to invite a city official to their grass roots fundraiser who eventually helped them secure the lease of an abandoned building in downtown Los Angeles. They worked on a community level, spreading the word of what they were trying to do, assembling a collection in the process and eventually building a membership of 30,000, some who have never set foot in the building but support it because they believe in the mission statement.

Obviously LATDA does not fit the former profile. We more closely resemble the latter, although we do have museum experience. We also have big picture mentality, long-range vision, and a creative approach to problem solving. What we do not have are lots of wealthy friends. But we hope that we have enough good friends who believe in what we are doing enough to invest in this much-needed dream.

We are starting a fundraising drive this month. We need to show the IRS that we have public support in order to maintain our non-profit status. If you haven’t received an email from us and simply follow our blog, please consider supporting us by becoming a member. Let us know how much you love the idea of a toy museum like LATDA. We will keep you posted as to our progress this month via blog. Join us today!

Growing pains

It has finally happened...LATDA art and artifacts are crowding us out of house and home! The time has come to rent a storage space to accommodate the growing number of donations from generous supporters. Sad though it makes me feel to put away the toys that surround my work space (and eating space and sleeping space), I am hoping that they will not languish long in their storage boxes. But the holidays are coming up and we need to shoehorn a tree and several friends and relatives into our living room soon. Finding a home for LATDA has moved up a notch on the list of priorities.

As I pack up boxes of monkeys and tin toys, I am re-inspired as to our mission to share these objects with the public. I feel a perpetual smile on my face as I envision displays incorporating our different kinds of alligator toys...Maybe chasing our collection of monkeys across a blue Lego plain...