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Toy and Miniature Museum of Kansas City
Category: Arts & Entertainment Museums Museums [Edit]
5235 Oak StKansas City, MO 64112
(816) 333-2055
- Hours:
Wed-Sat 10 am - 4 pm
Sun 1 pm - 4 pm
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
11 reviews for Toy and Miniature Museum of Kansas City
11 reviews in English
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Review from Monica C.
Shawnee, KS
8/29/2011
I'm a good mom because I sometime do things, not because I want to do them, but to give my daughter joy. That is exactly what I had planned this last lazy Saturday afternoon. I heard about a special free day at the museum and as an added bonus, they were celebrating the swinging 1940s. The fun of the forties might make this "kid's day out" a little more entertaining for me, I thought. Little did I know how amazing this dreamlike, whimsical place would be for me!
I simply cannot believe how many dollhouses are there! But boys, don't let that scare you off because the miniatures are unbelievable and fun for everyone and there are marbles and star wars and toy soldiers, oh my! I just can't believe the fanciful nature of the jam packed two stories. It was so much fun.
Would my fun come to end when we made it down to the gift shop by the exit? Surely I could snatch my daughter up and race to the door to save myself from the moment every parent dreads? The "can I have its" are the worst, especially when you are between paychecks. I am obviously a risk taker because I agreed to look and just see if there was anything affordable. Gift Shop, I love you. You had an adorable little set of silverware, just the size for a precious American Girl Doll, for $3.00. Perfect. -
Review from Lilian O.
Houston, TX
5/25/2011 1 Check-in Here
Can't sleep, clowns will eat me...
Creepy, strange, weird, horrifying, whimsical, interesting, fascinating. Those are all appropriate words to describe this unique museum. The details of the miniatures are incredible especially for being 1/12th or smaller of the actual size with 1 inch=1 foot. Some of the pieces were even designed to be fully functional - clocks, plumbing, lights, and even pistols!
Sitting at 33,000 square feet, this is the largest miniature museum in the Midwest and even features the largest collection of marbles I've ever seen. The museum sits inside the 38 room Tureman Mansion leased from UMKC, so admission is free to all UMKC students and staff. Otherwise, it is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors and all other students, $5 for children up to 12 years of age, and free for children younger than 5.
If you have an odd phobia of clowns and dolls like me, then the collection here will make you very squirmish. There's an entire room dedicated to Ragedy Ann, and I pretty much had to run out of there. Georgiana, the oldest doll in the collection, even has glass eyes and real human hair. I kept getting flashbacks to the 2002 movie "Red Dragon," the third installation of the original "Silence of the Lambs."
Ugh...shudder. Why go to a haunted house for Halloween when you can go year-round to the Toy and Miniature Museum?Listed in: The Best of Kansas City, UMKC and its surrounding…
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Review from Joi B.
"Twenty eyes in my head...they're all the same"
It's not likely that you'll ever see me quoting Glenn Danzig in a Yelp review again (that's sort of a lie), but this was all that I could think of as I perused room after room in the old mansion that contains the Toy and Miniature Museum of Kansas City.
The eyes are everywhere. Always feel like somebody's watching you? They are. Porcelain Dolls. Barbies. Teddy bears. Miniatures. Miniature miniatures. Miniature miniature miniatures (seriously, at one point you're looking at things through a microscope. These people aren't fooling). Hell, even the marble room technically is full of eyes, right? It's mind boggling.
I feel like I can't possibly absorb everything in just one visit and then write it all down in one review. Instead, I'll try to capture the essence of the museum here and leave the haunted doll speculation (and more!) to next time.
I'm going to come clean here and admit I was in love with my dolls when I was a young'un. I can't deny my conventional girlhood, as much as I embrace my youthful proclivity to play with bugs and ephemera. Joseph Cornell would probably agree that it's all somewhat related, after all (I thought of Joseph Cornell constantly here).
I had Cabbage Patch Kids, a Madame Alexander baby doll, and yes, I was a girl who loved her Barbies, too. I didn't have the Dream House or the swimming pool (with Barbies that tanned!) or that cool sports car, but my friends did. I just loved dressing her up in an array of fabulous outfits.
Barbie's 50th anniversary is the current special exhibit and it will not disappoint, showcasing the beloved doll throughout her every incarnation, including "Black Barbie." That this came out in not 1965, but 1980, uhhh seriously?...and "Hispanic Barbie" came out around the same time. Now we're told that this is sold only in Latin American markets and is not called anything but "Barbie." That's some save, Mattel. I loved the center display of the designer collection Barbies, by such famed designers as Bob Mackie and Christian Dior, but the best thing for me is they have a Barbie FASHION PLATE station. I still bemoan the retirement of Fashion Plates, as these were one of my favorite toys as a kid. I could have lost myself in the Fashion Plate area, but there was much more to see.
They have a modest Star Wars collection that takes up a corner of a giant room where you just know they are dying to expand, but little boys of the 70s ain't giving up their toys anytime soon, so I think that room is going to stay pretty bare.
Then there's the spectacular dollhouse collection. You don't have to be a dollhouse aficionado to appreciate this. One of my favorite things to do is to drive by spectacular homes and wonder what it would be like to live in such a place. Dollhouses give you a precious glimpse inside! I love imaging lives for houses and the people who live inside them. Even better, with historically accurate dollhouses (you better believe they have 'em here!), you get living schemes of the past encapsulated into anything from a log cabin to a modest cottage to grand Victorian mansion.
There are rooms upon rooms filled with dollhouses as old as a couple hundred years. Sizes range from a miniature dollhouse (set up in a craft room of a dollhouse, of course!) to a 7-foot masterpiece that features gas lighting and running water. There are also displays upon displays of all that goes into the dollhouses and a thorough explanation of how creating things according to scale works.
Talk about information and sensory overload. Like I said, this place begs multiple visits. And so I will return. -
Review from Erika D.
Kansas City, MO
2/20/2011
I had haunted dolls on the brain as we explored dimly lit rooms at the Toy & Miniature Museum of Kansas City. One of the scariest books that I remember reading as a kid was a supernatural mystery involving a haunted dollhouse. I felt the painted eyes of porcelain beauties following me through the museum.
My 5 year old seemed immune to the spook factor. He ran around in a constant state of excitement, pointing out oddities and peering through dollhouse windows into the miniature self-contained worlds.
The museum's collection is fascinating. The largest dollhouse stands nine feet tall and at one time may have had gas lights and running water! Victorian era dollhouses were used as teaching tools to prepare wealthy girls for their roles as wives and "household managers," so a variety of domestic servant dolls are on display.
In addition to the dollhouses, the museum has antique toys of every variety: wind ups, trains, teddy bears, puppets, etc. There are also modern miniatures, astonishing in their detail and scale. The craftsmanship and artistry that must be involved in creating miniatures (some so tiny that they can only be viewed through a microscope!) boggles my mind. Upstairs there is an enormous display of marbles, a case full of Star Wars memorabilia, and a temporary exhibit chronicling the history of Barbie. It's the kind of place you could could spend hours exploring and return to find something new again and again.
My husband commented that as you move through the museum's collection, the toys become more commercialized. The soulful eyes of chipped china dolls on the bottom floor are in sharp contrast with the homogenized sex appeal of made-in-China Barbies on the top.
My only complaint is that the museum doesn't allow photography. Ostensibly, they prohibit photography to protect the exhibits, but I don't see how a digital camera with flash off would harm anything. Surrounded by the bizarre and the beautiful, I was itching to look through my lens. I respected the museum's policy and only took photos when we were outside or in the lobby. Despite clearly posted signs, I saw plenty of other visitors snapping photos left and right.
The Toy & Miniature Museum of Kansas City is located on the UMKC campus in a renovated/expanded 1911 mansion (built for successful local doctor Herbert Tureman). I don't know if the Turemans ever commissioned a dollhouse replica of their elegant home, but I wouldn't be surprised if one turns up some day in a forgotten attic corner, dusty and determined to tell its stories to the world.
Notes: The museum considers their collection most appropriate for ages 5 and up. I think younger kids (3+) would enjoy it, as long as they have a firm grasp of the "look but don't touch" concept. The Barbie exhibit will be on display through July 4, 2011.
Read more on my KC Blog, The Family Unit (see Profile for link). -
Review from Angela K.
7/2/2010
Another strange and surprising discovery in Kansas City. I had no idea this place existed until I saw it in some top 10 places to go in KC list on TripAdvisor.
It has room after room of doll houses and miniature furnishings for the doll houses. As mentioned in another review, though, it would have been nice if there were plaques of cards describing what year the pieces were made or how they were made...anything. It was just a GIANT collection of houses and teeny tiny pieces for the houses.
It was certainly interesting and amazing to see the detail that went into it, but I would have enjoyed it more if I could have learned more about it all.
Upstairs, they had a Barbie collection that was pretty awesome. Barbies dating back to the original and including all of the special holiday Barbies filled a pretty big room. I think this might be a temporary exhibit, though.
The baby doll room on the second floor smelled like my grandma's basement and we didn't stay long after that because allergies were flaring up.
It's a pretty cool museum, but I would have enjoyed it much more with descriptions and information on what I was looking at. -
Review from Sarah D.
2/28/2009
I love this museum, but it is quite possibly the creepiest place I have ever been in. Once I got past the thought of millions of little eyes watching my every move, I realized how cool the place is. It has an amazing collection of toys both old and new...dolls, dollhouses, stuffed animals, trains, cars, puppets...they have everything! The museum is set up in an old house with 30+ rooms and each room is packed to the brim with stuff. Every time you visit you'll always find something that you didn't see the last time.
My personal favorite are the dollhouses--there are hundreds of them and they're all different sizes. I swear at least one of them is bigger than my apartment. I never had a dollhouse when I was a little girl, so I love coming here to press my face against the glass and wish I had my own to play with. All the houses are beautifully furnished with tiny little furniture and dolls. Some of them even have electricity or moving parts.
There's also a great gift shop--it's small, but they have all kinds of goodies that you won't find just anywhere. Great seasonal merch too.
Ooh, and there is one big case in the museum that is full of marionettes that is just horrifying--I can't bring myself to walk by it, I hate the thought of seeing their little eyes following me! ::shudders:: -
Review from Brian U.
Sylmar, CA
5/26/2010
I'm going to write a "short" review for the "miniature" museum.
The toys sections were consumed by doll houses and items that fill them. Although some are large and impressive, my interest "shrank" due to the repetition. The museum should renamed as "Welcome to the Dollhouse". There is section for marbles whose fan-base must be getting "smaller" every day. Other toys sections were either "undersized" like the toy trains or omitted like building blocks.
The miniatures section was a "teeny" wonderland of the museum. The "small" details of the miniatures are insanely tedious. I was going a "little" cross-eyed trying to see the "Lilliputian" craftsmanship.
At $7, the price is not "microscopic". For a Saturday afternoon, the museum was not very busy. I was a "bit" disappointed that there were no references to Munchkins. We are (almost) in Kansas after all. -
Review from tom k.
Kansas City, MO
8/20/2009
The collection of the toy and miniature museum is huge. It is case after case, doll house after doll house, toy after toy...to the point you won't want to see toys or miniatures for a good time after you leave. There is too much to look at for the size of the facility.
While the size of the collection remains a strong point, the weak point remains the lack of attention in properly displaying the collection. Many of the doll houses are unlit and too many of the pieces in the collection have little to no descriptive information about what the piece is or where if came from. If the museum concentrated more on being a true museum dedicated to learning and telling a story it would be a more fulfilling experience for visitors. Right now it is just a massive collection of interesting and sometimes creepy objects. -
Review from Scott D.
Kansas City, MO
12/9/2007
This is a little known treasure in Kansas City. I'm not interested in toys but all the minatures are mind-boggling! There are hundreds of dollhouses, and each one is furnished with tiny realistic furniture, chandeliers, and paintings. Separately, there are arrays of tools and musical instruments that are so exquisite and so tiny it's hard to imagine being able to pick one up with one's thumb and forefinger, much less imagine how they were made. There are fleas dressed up in costumes which require a magnified viewer to see. I've been twice, and I'm positive I've seen the Lord's Prayer printed on the head of a pin (with microscopic viewer) although I can hardly believe it myself. I would recomment this museum to anyone and everyone. It cost -like -$6 to get in and it's nice and quiet too! Located at the top of a hill on the west edge of the UMKC campus, with its own parking lot.
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Review from Sarah R.
Tonganoxie, KS
8/4/2010
I took my three daughters (ages 9, 6, 3) as a little summertime field trip. We enjoyed it! It was interesting to see all of the antique toys and talk to my girls about what children played with more than 100 years ago. They loved looking inside all of the dollhouse windows and spying miniature treasures. We spent more than 2 hours there and probably could have stayed longer. We will definitely come again.
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Review from Kimberly M.
Kansas City, MO
5/4/2009
a wonderland & hidden gem. while biking home from the Brookside Art Fair, I decided to check this place out. It houses an endless array of miniatures, toys, games, dolls & much more. Some of the dollhouses are unbelievable. One was about 5 stories & had running water & gas lighting. That spoiled little rich girl must have been quite happy with it back in the day. One room is just for a large marble collection. My faves were probably the plethora of circus-themed items & the peepshow (not dirty) light boxes. Very cool to see art & craft on such a small scale. I am not creeped out by the thousands of eyes in the museum, but can see how others might be. I think the gift shop could have much cooler items than they do, but whatever. Staff is super friendly & the place is very clean & well-kept. Free for UMKC staff. It is super place & I'll definitely be bringing friends & out-of-town visitors there.
