For Collector, Toys Are More Than Kid Stuff : Exhibit: Windups, nesting dolls and other old, handmade toys from all over the world are featured at Fullerton’s Hunt Branch library.
Carolyn Johnson’s girls left home years ago, but the Fullerton City librarian is still picking up toys.
These days, however, Johnson’s toy collecting takes her far beyond the family room. In the course of her international travels, she has built a collection of nearly 300 toys representing dozens of cultures. About 40 of those pieces are featured in “Toys From Around the World,” an exhibit at Fullerton’s Hunt Branch library through Jan. 31.
“When the children left, I looked over the toys they left behind and realized I had as much fun buying them as they did playing with them,” said Johnson, who says she has a special weakness for windup toys. “I suppose I’m really just a child at heart.”
One of the more valuable pieces in the show is a sky-blue toy convertible by Schuco, a German toy maker that, according to Johnson, created the “cream of the windup toys.” Although it looks a bit road-weary now, the car, which was built in U.S.-occupied West Germany just after World War II, boasts a working hand brake and gear shift. A twist of its tiny steering wheel sets its four wheels turning down a hundred imaginary highways.
Two other Schuco windups are a nattily dressed mouse and clown that, with a turn of a key, lift a smaller figure up in the air and swings it back and forth. According to Johnson, American author Russell Hoban was so taken by the mouse that he wrote a children’s story, “The Mouse of his Child,” based on its make-believe adventures. Other windup toys in the show include a tail-swinging Spanish bull and a lumbering, fire-spitting dragon from Japan.
Johnson also has a penchant for nesting dolls--wooden figures that, when opened, reveal a series of figures in decreasing sizes. Nesting dolls were a popular folk art in Russia and Japan for centuries and have been adopted by cultures worldwide. The Fullerton exhibit includes a set of eight brightly painted Russian misses, a Japanese family and a series of sultry, sari-clad Indian girls. A Polish set of nesting dolls based on Frank Baum’s “Wizard of Oz” characters includes a six-inch Dorothy, within which are a Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, Tin Man and thimble-size Toto. An English variation features dinosaurs and a caveman on a series of quilted pieces resembling proper British tea cozies.
A bottle-green Duncan yo-yo is the sole U.S. delegate in the show, but Johnson also has a fondness for hand-carved toys such as those from the Appalachian region.
“Most of the time, I look for something that’s unique and hand-made, something a little rough” that best represents the nation’s roots, said Johnson, who says she supplements her purchases abroad with items from local museum shops. “Most of the things I’ve picked up take a little skill to make but are not of expensive materials.”
Primitive carved toys on display include a Russian paddle game. When a child sways the paddle side to side, the movement of a small ball hanging beneath the paddle causes a bear, apparently in search of a snack, to beat a beehive with a stick. Also shown is a set of tiny Guatemalan “worry dolls” made of scraps of wood, wire and fabric. According to Johnson, tradition says that by telling the dolls their worries and then tucking them into their rough wooden house for the night, the doll’s owner will awake untroubled the next day.
“Toys From Around the World” continues through Jan. 31 at Fullerton’s Hunt Branch library, 201 S. Basque Ave. Admission is free. Library hours are Mondays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call (714) 871-9450.