Going down the memory lane of toys - MINT Museum of Toys

Having heard of MINT Museum of Toys for some time through my friends' posts on Facebook, I never got a chance to visit this place only until this afternoon. I had the impression that this was a place which housed vintage toys from various countries and local childhood toys which coincided with the museum's description on its official website:

"MINT (Moment of Imagination and Nostalgia with Toys) Museum of Toys is the world's first purpose-built museum for toys, and opened its door to the public in May 2006. It was officially launched by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr George Yeo, on 5 March 2007. Belonging to Mr Chang Yang Fa, a Singapore Citizen, the private museum showcases an extensive collection of vintage toys, including rare and unique one-of-a-kind pieces. It is considered to be the largest collection of its kind within Southeast Asia, with more than 50,000 pieces of vintage toys and childhood memorabilia from more than 40 countries, including Singapore, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, the United States, and even Bulgaria. The collection ranges from the mid-19th Century to the mid-20th Century."

It may be easy to miss the entrance of MINT since it is sandwiched between a chicken rice shop and a pub-restaurant. Luckily, there is a new pop-up board for people to take pictures with outside the entrance so it should be easier to spot the museum now. The museum consists of 5 floors whereby the first floor is the MINT shop which offers various toys on sale. More on that later after I introduce the other floors of exhibition space.

On the 5th level, there is a rooftop bar and on the walls and staircase leading to the 4th floor, there are enamel displays of vintage ads for products such as alcoholic drinks. Personally, I thought that it was interesting to see these ads and how the products were marketed in the past. Some of the ads were really simple with a single picture and the brand name which was really straight-to-the-point and concise. Unlike many ads these days which can get really cluttered or abstract that we can't tell at a glance what the ad is selling, I thought the simplicity in the past excels in bringing across the message as it is instead of letting "noise" disrupt the delivery of the message. Perhaps this is something which the advertisers of today can learn from. Although there are quite a number of ads on display, it might be ideal to re-arrange it in the form of specified themes or clusters of ads selling similar products so as to leave a deeper impression on the visitors.

At the staircase landings between the levels, there are huge glass cabinets extending from the floor to the ceiling showcasing a variety of toys and related merchandise. However, due to the absence of any descriptions, tags or signage indicating that there was a theme in each of the displays, it took a fair bit of time and effort trying to decipher why certain toys were displayed together and if there was any similarity between them. There were some sections which I could hardly understand why the toys were being placed together and if there was a theme on each floor. As such, I felt that it was a pity because visitors wouldn't have known the message behind the displays if they are not on a guided tour. In addition, the lighting in the glass cabinets was so dim that it made the toys appear darker than they truly are. The items featured on the top shelves could only be seen if you are standing on the top of the stairs while those at the lower shelves can only be viewed if you bend or squat down. I thought that it was really inconvenient and difficult for me to view the displays in this straining manner. Coupled with the poor ventilation and lack of air-conditioning especially in the higher floors (be it the stairways or the exhibition gallery), it was truly a sweltering experience for me even though I spent only an hour or so in the entire museum.

In the exhibition galleries though, the lighting turned out to be an issue again. This time round, the lights are fitted at the bottom of each shelf so if you want to take a picture of something opposite the full-wall glass cabinets, you will get ugly light lines as shown in the picture on the right. That was why I decided to give up taking pictures of some of the exhibits because I just couldn't avoid or erase the light lines from my pictures. Perhaps a skilled professional photographer will be able to do something about this situation but alas, I'm not.

Given that MINT is a small-scale museum and privately-funded, I guess that it might not have resources such as the bigger national museums which can invest in special lighting to bring out the best in the exhibits but it will be worth looking into this in time to come so as to boost the appeal of the museum to visitors. In this time and age where many people take photos and share on social media, not being able to take a decent picture with a handphone is probably going to be a sore point for people who want to leave behind some memories of their visits and share it with their friends and families. It will do the museum good if the sharing of such photos is facilitated as this will create interest just as what it did for me when I saw pictures of the museum on my friends' Facebook pages.


On levels 2 to 4, there are exhibition galleries featuring the themes of collectables, childhood favourites, characters and outerspace. True be told, I had difficulty understanding the themes as the descriptions at the entrance of the galleries made me wonder why certain things are classified under a particular category. In any case, I think the bigger problem lies with the heavy focus on vintage toys which may be too far back in time for us to get excited about. I do like seeing vintage toys in order to get a feel of how toys made in the past looked like. However, when you go through rows and rows of such toys which featured characters that you've not seen nor heard of before, I admit that I was feeling rather weary quite soon. Considering that I'm in my early 30s and there are so many toys featured which came out before the 80s when I was born and grew up as a kid, it was difficulty to get excited over these older toys. Perhaps there might be an exhibition in future where the toys are classified in terms of the time periods they come from and more side stories to elaborate on the history of each character/toy so as to engage the visitor in another way and stir up interest. In addition, there is too little focus on the toys played by children in Singapore during the old days so I would prefer to see more of that. The arrangement of the toys could also be altered in such a way that the exhibits are not blocked by one another. As seen from my photo on the left, two of the seven dwarfs from Snow White had their faces concealed which I thought was not an ideal thing to happen in a museum's display shelf.

Last but not least, with regard to the MINT shop, I thought that they had a pretty interesting range of items, be it old or new. However, the pricing of the items seem a bit high e.g. the pack of vintage "five-stones" would cost $15. Considering that I had already paid $15 for the adult ticket, I wasn't too keen to pay another 15 for a relatively no-frills set of "five stones". Perhaps there needs to be more competitive pricing so as to entice visitors to shell out extra money to bring home souvenirs after the visit.

In conclusion, I truly applaud MINT's efforts in conserving and displaying such an extensive collection which makes it one of its kind. However, to keep the museum going in future and attract both new and repeat visitors, there are some improvements which need to be made and hopefully, these enhancements will happen in the near future.