Register Bells Are Ringing at Museum Gift Shops

Museum gift shops are gearing up for the holidays, their second-largest sales period, with unique gift ideas that range from imported folk art to high-tech office supplies. Summer is the heaviest sales time and the institutions count on gift-shop profits to keep the otherwise nonprofit organizations alive and well.

Books are nearly every museum’s biggest seller.

The Natural History Museum in Balboa Park boasts having the largest supply of natural history books in Southern California, with more than 3,500 titles. Book sales account for about 38% of the shop’s total revenues.

Claims of being the largest abound. The San Diego Museum of Art claims to have the largest number of art books in the county. And the sales staff at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art believes that it has one of the best selections of architecture and photography books.

What makes the gift shops unique are the exclusive items that mirror what each museum has on display.

Sales at the Museum of Man’s gift shop, which usually generate $250,000 in annual revenues, rose 50% over the normal season last Christmas, according to manager Shirley Phillips.

Phillips calls the store an ethnic arts shop the because merchandise is folk-art items from all over the world, mostly from Latin America.

For the holidays, the store stocks hand-made ornaments from around the world. Russian black-lacquered boxes with richly colored story scenes are highly touted, and range in price from $27.50 to $1,200.

The shop’s eyecatchers are the decorative and brightly colored masks of Mexico and Central America. The store also carries American Indian crafts, molas (yarn paintings) from Central America, balsa wood birds from Ecuador, baskets from Kenya, embroidered tapestries from Peru and copies of pre-Columbian jewelry from Latin America.

Sales increase about 60% during the holidays at the Natural History Museum’s gift shop, where annual revenues reach about $250,000, according to manager Pam Pejsa.

Popular items include minerals, fossils and shells, which account for 18% of total sales. Children’s gifts such as science kits, boomerangs, board games, ant farms and frog hatcheries represent about 12% of sales. The gift shop also offers Eskimo art, stone carvings and hand-crafted jewelry.

The San Diego Museum of Art’s gift shop overstocks all its goods for the holiday season, according to Jane Rice, deputy director of the museum. The gift shop, which generates about $732,000 in annual revenues, specializes in original and contemporary jewelry, as well as small art objects, most of which are made by local artists.

The La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art’s gift shop, which generates $125,000 in annual sales, is primarily a bookstore, although it also carries “design items,” according to acting manager Al Margraff. Contemporary and art nouveau jewelry, as well as high-tech-style office supplies are some of the shop’s biggest sellers.

During the holiday season, the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater’s gift shop carries more items than usual, according to assistant manager Joyce Howardell. Items include futuristic lamps, clocks and neon signs, and children’s items such as wooden jigsaw puzzles, space shuttle model kits and robot toys. The San Diego Aerospace Museum gift shop carries more gift-type merchandise during December. The most popular items include clothing, cups and toys-- with airplanes adorning nearly everything, according to sales clerk Alma Flores.