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The Nuremberg Toy Museum
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They say the people of Nuremberg always made the little things. Under the shadow of the emperor’s palace, they churned out such objects as the cramped workshops of the old town had room for. They caved buttons, lathed screws and fried up the world’s smallest sausages in the one-time free, imperial city of Nuremberg.
The business with the toys just happened on the side. There was the wood carver who, when he was finished with his figures of saints, whittled a head for Punch, or the tinsmith who, when the day’s work was done, made a top for his children.
In time, the toys got more sophisticated and fancy. They became a key industry for Nuremberg. It was no longer the simple craftsmen in the alleyways of the old town, but huge factories that produced toys and exported them to all corners of the globe. The toy-makers’ imagination knew no bounds.
Old Nurmberg toys have gotten to be valuable. What was once meant for a child’s hands now handled with kid gloves. What used to get thrown into a corner of the nursey now sits under glass. One of the finest toy museums in the word is in Nuremberg.
The muserum has its beginning in a private collection, started back in the 20’s by Paul and Lydia Bayer. That was at a time when hardly anyone had even thought about collecting toys. With incredible gusto, this family put together a collection which today is without parallel.
Over 200,000 children and adults visit the museum annually. Though it has some ancient exhibits, like the bronze dice, or exotica, such as a puppet from from Peru, most of the playthings are of domestic production.
This double-decker carousel is from 1910. It was custom made for grandmother who knew the real thingsfrom her childhood days at the Furth church fair. Just like the original, it can be disassembled and has an organ built in.
Sometimes, the collection grew in strange ways. One day, a lady came to the toy muserum’s director looking for a new home for an old friend.
She got it as a girl if eight in 1933, and sixty years later, on her 68th birthday, you might say on the sixieth anniversary of the friendship between woman and teddy bear, she brought it to the museum and gave it to us.
She had no children of her own and wanted to ensure a peaceful and lasting resting place for her teddy bear.
For our part, we’re very thankful there’s always people willing to trust with the treasures from their childhood.
By the mid 19th century, the traveling salesmen could no longer fit all the doolls, construction kits, tin figures, balls, toy shops, and crafts sets into their coaches, let alone carry them in their backs. So the toy-makers started printing catalogues, not a few of which are preserved in the toy museum. This way, the traders could carry the whole range of merchandise in colorful and elaborately laid out samples books, so the customers could take their pick of Nuremberg’s abundant production of toys.
With the advent of mass production, many toys became affordable for poor families, too. Others, such as doll houses, remained out of reach as luxury items. From these doll house developed doll furniture and especially the doll kitchen, since quite obviously, little girls who were supposed to be prepared for their future lives as ladies of the house played with the kitchen, in particular, quite a lot and quite well. Then the Nuremberg craftsmen came up with the idea of removing the kitchen from the ensemble and modeling it very exactly after the life-size originals.
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纽伦堡玩具博物馆
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人们说纽伦堡的人总在制作小玩艺。在皇帝宫殿的庇护下，他们制造的产品堆满了这座古城的狭小作坊。在这一度自由的纽伦堡皇城里，他们生产扭扣，加工螺钉，烤制着世界上最小的香肠。
玩具最初只是一种副产品。木刻师在刻完圣像后，随意削了个木偶头；锡匠干完一天的活之后，为孩子们做一个旋转陀螺。
渐渐地，玩具越做越精致了，它开始成为纽伦堡的主要产业。它再也不是小胡同里工匠们的粗糙制品了。大工厂生产的玩具出口到了世界各地。设计者的创意更是层出不穷。
纽伦堡的老式玩具如今都已身价不凡。它们被精心呵护着，育婴室角落里的旧玩具也被放到了玻璃橱中。
世界上最好的玩具博物馆在纽伦堡。
这个博物馆最初只是一间私人收藏室。玩具的主人是20年代的保罗和丽迪亚·拜尔。那时，很少有人会想到去收集玩具。而这家人却以极大的热忱，收藏了大量老式玩具，至今无人能与之匹敌。
每年都有二十多万个小孩和成人来这里参观。尽管有些青铜骰子之类的古老展品，以及秘鲁木偶等异国玩具，但多数玩具仍是国内生产的。这个双层旋转木马建造于1910年。当时，它是根据一位老奶奶对儿时教堂展览会的回忆而定做的。玩具跟原物一样可以拆卸，里面装着八音盒。
有时，收藏品会来得很突然。一天，一位女士来找博物馆经理，请求为她的老朋友找个新家。这是1933年她八岁时得到的一件礼物。60年后，在她68岁生日那天，也就是她与玩具熊建立友谊60周年那一天，她来到博物馆，把它交给了我们。她没有自己的孩子，所以想为这只玩具熊找到一个平安的居所。
我们非常感谢人们对我们的信任，感谢他们愿意把自己孩提时的宝物交给我们。到了19世纪中叶，商人们再也无法带着这些布娃娃、组装成套玩具、锡制玩具、皮球、玩具商店去四处兜售了。于是玩具制造商们开始印制目录，以便商人们能够带着内容详尽、图片精美的手册去各地销售，而顾客们也能从丰富多样的纽伦堡玩具目录中找到自己满意的商品了。
由于玩具的大批量生产，许多穷孩子也能买得起玩具了。其它的，如玩具屋仍然是富人们的专利。从玩具屋又逐渐发展出玩具家俱，尤其是玩具厨房，就很受小女孩的欢迎。人们也希望她们通过玩玩具厨房来为未来生活做好准备。后来，纽伦堡的工匠们又想出了新点子，将玩具厨房做成可以组合的，并造得和实物一般大小。
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