Soltau, a small town located in the north of Germany, just an hour’s drive from Hamburg.
In the center of Soltau, spread out across two buildings (Poststrasse 7 and 15), is one of the most exiting toy museums I know.
Welcome to the Toy Museum Soltau (“Spielmuseum Soltau”), a house full of treasures, dreams and ideas!
The museum houses one of the best and most varied toy collections in the world: from a huge all-original Victorian dolls house with fifteen fully furnished rooms to a great Humpty-Dumpty circus set, from William & Mary wooden dolls to mechanical tin toys and from Erzgebirge scenes to paper toys.
And it will get even better: at the end of March 2020 a special department dedicated to a large collection of Fernand Martin toys will open at the Poststrasse 15 branch of the museum.
This department will be named “Klein-Paris!” (Little Paris!): a new exhibition unit with fantastic French toys from the turn of the (1900) century is currently under construction.
The focus is on mechanical sheet metal figures by the famous Paris toy maker Fernand Martin.
All objects come from the great collection of Arthur Verdoorn and were donated to the “Stiftung Spiel” (Foundation for Play) that runs the museum.
Arthur Verdoorn was a Dutch collector and a personal friend of mine, he was one of the two authors of the fantastic book: “Fernand Martin Toy Maker In Paris 1878-1912”.
I know his collection very well and I often played together with him, in his own home museum, with these toys.
A very large collection that fortunately can be admired by everyone soon.
The Spielmuseum Soltau is not just a museum to look at: visitors of all generations are invited to explore, enjoy, try out, play and learn. So, step into history, reminisce and get inspired!
The museum is open 365 days a year from 10 am to 6 pm and the exhibitions cover a total of 900 square meters.
And have you decided to take a look and travel to Soltau?
Then don’t miss the nearby felt museum “felto – Filzwelt Soltau” and be surprised there, too – for example by more than 120 historic Steiff character dolls all made of felt.