Bandai opens The World Toy Museum

On Wednesday April 28, 2004, Bandai opened The World Toy Museum, exhibiting the company's own collection of antique toys from around the world, among other exhibits, in the Karuizawa Prince Shopping Plaza, Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture, Japan.

Through this museum, Bandai aims to educate young and old alike about the culture and customs of bygone days, and to stimulate interest in the history and culture of toys. The museum will be run as a cultural entertainment facility, where visitors can have fun experiencing toy culture at first hand.

1,000 items carefully selected from a collection of some 7,000 antique toys Bandai acquired from the London Toy and Model Museum in 2001 are displayed in a space divided into 11 different zones. Among many striking exhibits, pride of place goes to a large-scale model coal mine created in the early 1900s, and never before on public display in Japan. At the museum's entrance is another crowd-pleaser in the form of the Pendle Princess, a model coal-fired steam traction engine manufactured in 1919.

Visitors will not only be able to see the exhibits, but also learn about how they were manufactured and assembled, and how they worked, through easy-to-understand displays featuring the real thing or reproductions in 3D or graphic form. In addition to exhibits on permanent display, Bandai plans to hold periodic workshops and special feature exhibitions (including an opening promotion the Exhibition of Japanese Toys: Made in Japan in the Showa Era ). The displays have been put together under the supervision of a panel of experts, including Mr. Teruhisa Kitahara, the famous collector of tin toys.

Also see: Collectible Toys

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