Meet your old pals (Teddy! Mr. Potato Head! Andy!) at this newly reopened toy museum

Welcome to the Wayback Machine, just waiting to take you to your childhood. It’s in the form of the newly reopened National Museum of Toys and Miniatures in Kanasas City, Mo.

Like a chronicle of your childhood, the 21,000 items include your basic stuffed teddy bear, Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls, Mr. Potato Head and Hungry Hungry Hippo, among other favorites.

You’ll also learn about the art of handcrafting fine miniatures, one of the largest collections in the world.

New in the Fine Miniatures Gallery: an exhibit demonstrating the microscopic work required to create tiny-scale figures. Lee-Ann Chellis Wessel, one of the world’s best-known miniature porcelain artists, and William Robertson, renowned for woodworking in miniature, demonstrate their craft by way of a video monitor.

Then, good luck: You have your chance to attach the hour and minute hands to the face of a 7-inch-tall grandfather clock. Tweezers and magnifying glasses are supplied.

The museum has many stories to tell. One teddy bear, for instance, dates to 1905 and is in pristine condition, except for a very worn nose.

Teddy was owned by little Mabel Dixon who learned to take her frustrations in life out on the bear’s nose rather than those around her.

The exhibit includes a picture of Mabel as a child and as an 80-year-old woman, both holding the same toy.

The second-floor toy gallery includes a new exhibit on the history of toy manufacturing starting with Germany in the 1700s through modern-day micro-chip toys. Cheesy black-and-white films from the 1950s show the construction process for Betsy Wetsy and Jack-in-the-Box.

The most exciting part of the new gallery space may be the interactive Little Orphan Annie decoder ring exhibit. Museum staff members each submitted their own secret message for visitors to decode per Annie’s instruction.

The museum, on the campus of the University of Missouri-Kansas City at 5235 Oak St., opened in 1982 featuring the collection of two local women. It has been closed for 18 months while it underwent an $8-million renovation and expansion of the collection with gifts from collectors across the U.S.

Info: The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays-Mondays. Admission is $5 for those ages 5 and older, free for active-duty military and those younger than 5.

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