Toy & Miniature Museum of Kansas City - Part 1 - Dollhouses

The family and I took a trip to Kansas City this past weekend and one of the places we visited was the Toy & Miniature Museum of Kansas City.  Last year the museum celebrated 30 years.  I took over 200 photos so I will just share some of the highlights in several posts.  I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos.  Everything was behind plexiglass or glass and I had to turn off the flash and the lighting wasn't all that great. 

The museum is located inside a historic mansion on the campus of the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC).  Mary Harris Francis and Barbara Marshall were both collectors who were encouraged by friends and family to merge their private collections and create a museum.  Francis specialized in dollhouses while Marshall enjoyed the fine scale miniatures.  The museum building is built around what was once a private home known as the "Tureman Mansion".  Additional exhibit space has been added over the years to house the huge collection.  The museum will close at the end of this year to undergo renovations and expansion and will re-open as the National Toy and Miniature Museum.
This post will include a few of the over 100 Dollhouses.

I found this picture online with the house opened up

I like the clever way they displayed the front of the house above

I really liked this realistic Victorian house - note the art glass window built into the chimney

Quite a few items from Germany

This one was labeled 6 Story Hotel or Apartment 1903

These were some detailed balsa wood models at different scales

one of my favorites was this Tynietoy House from the 1920's

The Tynietoy Adventure Begins

This is how my Tynietoy collecting began: I had been reading some books on antique dollhouse furniture that I had checked out from the library.
I seem to have photographic memory of sorts when it comes to pictures.
I was browsing through a local antique mall and came across these miniatures, mixed with a bunch of antique toys. I had the clerk remove them from the display case so that I could examine them for authenticity. I studied the Tynietoy imprint on the bottom, trying to read it, not really ever seeing it before. I remembered seeing something like them in the books I had checked out from the library a while back. I did some online research and came across Tynietoy, including a plea from someone online willing to purchase Tynietoys from buyers across the U.S. I emailed her these photographs and asked questions. After corresponding back and forth, I decided after talking with my wife that these Tynietoy pieces would be a good investment. I drug my wife down to the antique mall and we made our first Tynietoy purchases. That was September of 2006. Thus, the journey began.

To see the rest of my collection,
Click on: http://tulsatinystuff.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-tynietoy-collection.html