If your childhood toys from the 1980s are still tucked away in a closet, attic, or boxed up in a basement, there's a national museum in Kansas City that might be interested in taking them off your hands.
The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures is calling for donations as they prepare for a special exhibit in 2027 that will feature toys connected to the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons.
“We're talking about things that you would have seen while sitting in front of your television in 1985 while you're having your big bowl of sugar-coated cereal,” says Madeline Rislow, senior manager of Learning and Engagement at the museum.
Museum curators say they’re looking for the kinds of objects that tell a broader story about pop culture and childhood more than three decades ago.
That could include toys associated with cartoons like He-Man, “The Transformers” and others. During that era, commercials aimed at children fueled demand for toys associated with the cartoons.
Eventually, some cartoons like “My Little Pony,” “The Care Bears” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” were developed solely to market toys to kids.
“If you have toys that you have these great memories with, or maybe you have photographs of you playing with the toys as a child,” she says, “those are particularly great for our collection and would be amazing to have potentially for this special exhibition.”
Museum curators aren’t looking strictly for pristine toys still in their packages.
“Some of my favorite objects in the collection are kind of beat up because they were loved,” Rislow says.
People interested in donating toys can email the museum by April 30 with contact information, a brief history of the toy and its original owners, and clear photographs showing all sides of the object, including any maker’s marks. The museum’s collections committee will review donations for possible inclusion in the 2027 exhibition.
Rislow herself is a child of the 1980s. One of her favorite toys was a Care Bear, and she went on to collect the bears as an adult.
“I did in fact receive a Tenderheart Care Bear, and I absolutely love it,” she says. “It was light brown and it had a white tummy with a red heart in the middle of it.”
Rislow says visitors often wonder if toys from their childhood are museum-worthy, or if a museum would value them.
“We absolutely will find value in that,” Rislow says. “It's not just about the physical object. It's really about how the object tells a story about who we are, the meaning of the past, and its connections to the future.”
