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The Old Salem Toy Museum houses an extensive collection of antique toys from a wide range of time periods and places. Located at the former Gallery at Old Salem, this full-time toy museum exhibits the collections held by the Gallery and the generous gifts of Anne and Thomas Gray.
Exhibits span 1700 years of toys from 225 A.D. to 1925 A.D and are placed in context to those that were owned and used by the Moravians who settled Salem, NC. The Moravian toy exhibit includes a unique collection of wooden German toys and locally made dolls. Other exhibits include Romano-English and Elizabethan toys excavated from London's Thames River, mementos of a time when neither children nor their toys enjoyed long life spans. Silver, brass and ivory miniatures sparkle in a 1740 aristocratic baby house, while bronze and carved wooden firearms allow children the chance to mimic the warriors of an earlier day.
The museum also includes board games, puzzles and other parlor toys from the 19 th century. Hand painted dollhouses, elaborately furnished with every conceivable luxury, are prize collectibles beside the miniature kitchens and general stores. Wooden toys imported from the cottage industries near Nuremberg are exhibited in a German Toy Shop. The museum also houses a vast collection of zoos and circuses, puppets, horse-drawn carriage toys and tin airplanes modeled on the Wright Brothers model. |
