As an only child of parents who worked long hours on their business, one of the more formative things in my childhood were the toys that keep you company in all those times outside of school – and when I heard that there was a proper toy museum by a private collector in Singapore, given that I was alone on the trip, it was a no-brainer to add the MINT Toy Museum into my itinerary. The building itself is also quite distinct.
The Museum itself is split into 5 levels each with their own individual themes.
The collection itself from a perspective of a private collector is very impressive, and what is particularly interesting is that the collection is actually a history of toys and not just things that took his fancy. Here are some of the highlights:
Outerspace
As a Star Wars fan, one of the greatest thing about the franchise is that some of the character designs really does pop! And by far one of the cooler designs is Darth Maul.
In addition to there, there’s always the crossovers.
Characters
One of the benefit of growing up as an Asia under a Western upbringing is that you get the appreciate cultures of a much broader scale – and of course, it was almost impossible to not fall in over with characters such as TinTin.
And one of Mama Buddha’s favourites were there too (Popye):
Childhood Favourites
If there’s one thing that toys can do, it is to allow a child to explore their imaginations and build stories that are un-corrupted by reality – and every child deserves such rights. “Door of Hope” was established to help disadvantage women by teaching them skills to make dolls and sell them in turn to pay for education.
Collectibles
Even today, toys fascinate me, as you age and have the fortunate chance to have disposable income, you buy toys to cling onto the childhood memories as a reminder to never lose that dreamy ability to imagine how much further you can reach; and nothing allows such imagination more than the very first toys – they weren’t commercialised – they were just toys – it’s beautiful.
MINT Toy Museum is really worth the visit if you’re a child-at-heart like me!
