This listing will continue to be expanded. If you would like your organization to be included, please contact info@museoleikki.fi.

Halonen Museum Foundation / The Museum of Fine Arts Eemil

The collections of the Halonen Museum Foundation in Lapinlahti include a doll and a child’s stool that belonged to Eemil Halonen. The collections also feature numerous artworks depicting children and themes related to childhood.

Helsinki City Museum 

The Helsinki City Museum holds more than 3,000 toys and games, the oldest dating back to the 19th century (including tin soldiers and dollhouse items). Most of the toys and games are from the 20th century. The toys have come into the collections from private owners, kindergartens, and Helsinki shops that sold toys. A significant set comes from the Niemi Toy Factory. Another highlight is a batch of plastic animal figures made by T. Åkerman as a sideline in the 1950s. The archive collections include hundreds of paper dolls as well as notebooks filled with rhymes and drawings. Some materials are available in Finna.

Ski Museum 

The Ski Museum in Lahti preserves objects, photographs, and archival material related to winter play.

Finnish Aviation Museum

The Finnish Aviation Museum in Vantaa holds dozens of games and some toys. Some materials are available in Finna.

Kankaanpää City Museum

The Kankaanpää City Museum collections include the toy collection of a daycare closed in the 1980s, as well as items from a toy shop that ceased operation in the late 1980s–1990s. Altogether, the collection holds hundreds of objects, along with some photographs of play.

National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI)

The National Audiovisual Institute in Helsinki holds toys related to visual representation, the oldest from the early 20th century. The collections also contain numerous prop toys from the Urpo and Turpo series.

Kymenlaakso Museum

The Kymenlaakso Museum in Kotka has nearly 900 toys, most of them dolls. The collections also include 161 toys belonging to a boy born in 1973, with contextual information and descriptions of their use. The photo collections feature hundreds of images of play, including traditional games. The archives hold diaries from playgrounds in the 1940s as well as interviews about childhood from 2000. Some materials are available in Finna.

Lahti Museums – Cultural History Collections

Lahti Museums’ cultural history collections contain nearly 700 toy-related objects. The photo collections include at least 500 images connected to play, playgrounds, and toys. The archive collections feature about ten die-cut scrapbook pictures. Some materials are available in Finna.

Lappeenranta Museums

The collections of Lappeenranta Museums include toys mainly from the 20th century, such as dollhouses, wartime toys, and toys of evacuee children. The photo collections contain many images of children playing and posing with toys. The archives include interviews about using the Salpa Line fortifications as play sites. Some materials are available in Finna.

The Art Centre for Children and Young People Foundation

Located in Hyvinkää, the foundation holds thousands of artworks from many countries. Many works depict themes related to play and toys. The foundation’s website features online exhibitions with digitized images.

Kindergarten Museum

The Kindergarten Museum in Helsinki showcases objects related to the operation of kindergartens and daycare centers as well as teacher training, such as toys, tools, pedagogical material, textiles, and children’s furniture. While the collections focus on Helsinki, they also include items from elsewhere in Finland. The material ranges from the 1900s to the present, with about 3,500 photographs dating back to the late 19th century. Some materials are available in Finna.

Kindergarten House Saima

The collections of Kindergarten House Saima in Pori include objects used in daycare. Most of the toys are wooden and from the early 20th century. The photo collections contain 100 images from albums of former directors of the People’s Kindergarten.

Toy Museum Lelumuseo Eilisen lapset ja Leikityt lelut

Located in Paltamo, this toy museum holds dolls from the early 1950s, mechanical toys, and plaster figurines.

Museum Centre Taika / Hyvinkää City Museum

Hyvinkää City Museum preserves extensive material related to the local Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, from the 1920s onwards. The collections also include some toys and objects from the Hyvinkää School Museum.

Naantali Museum

The Naantali Museum holds play- and toy-related objects from the mid-19th century onwards. The oldest items include puzzles from the 1850s and photographs from the 1860s. The archives feature materials from a children’s sanatorium.

Museum of the Visually Impaired Memona 

The Museum of the Visually Impaired  in Helsinki preserves archival materials on schools for the blind since the 1990s, as well as documentation of play and yard traditions of visually impaired children.

Oulu Museum and Science Centre, North Ostrobothnia Museum

The collections include traditional toys, dolls, cars, and games, along with some photographs of children at play. The archives hold, among other things, a survey on traditional games and a survey on rhymes and play.

Ostrobothnian Museum

The Ostrobothnian Museum in Vaasa holds around 1,500 toys of different periods.

Postal Museum

The Postal Museum in Tampere preserves toys and games such as board games and toy postal vans. The photographs depict playgrounds and children at play, while the archives hold numerous play-themed stamps and postcards. Some materials are available in Finna, and all Finnish stamps can be accessed through the online stamp browser.

Porvoo Museum

The Porvoo Museum collections include child-themed artworks as well as school-related objects, photographs, and archival material. The oldest items date to the 19th century.

Riihisaari – Savonlinna Museum

In 2016, the museum received a donation of about 5,000 dolls and toys from local teacher Käpy Tarus, ranging from the late 18th century to the present. The collections also include several hundred other dolls and toys. The photo collections contain more than 1,000 images related to toys, play, and childhood.

Sastamala Regional Museum

The collections document local woodcraft, including about 50 wooden toys made in Sastamala. The photo collections hold about 50 images related to play and toys.

Serlachius 

Located in Mänttä, the Serlachius collections include 61 toys, most of them plush animals connected with Serla brand collecting. The photo collections feature images from the 1910s to the 1970s from the Childhood in Mänttä survey project while the archives hold over a hundred related interviews.

Stundars Museum

The Stundars Museum in Mustasaari preserves wooden toys from the early 20th century, toys of burgher families, handicrafts, and objects related to artisan life.

The National Museum of Finland

The National Museum of Finland in Helsinki preserves a large body of play- and toy-related materials within its historical, ethnological, and Independence-period collections. The holdings range from the Middle Ages to the present and include dolls, toy vehicles, play dishes and tools, several complete dollhouses, and many different games. The museum’s photo and archival collections have been transferred to the Finnish Heritage Agency. Some materials are available in Finna.

The Maritime Museum

Part of the National Museum and located in Kotka, the Maritime Museum preserves toy ships and plush toys. The photo collections contain dozens of play-related images. Some materials are available in Finna.

Finnish Railway Museum

The Finnish Railway Museum in Hyvinkää holds several toy locomotives from the 1940s–1960s, as well as material related to VR’s local traffic mascot Verne. The photo collections contain images of local railway workers’ children at play and children traveling. The archives include children’s travel tickets and stickers of the Verne mascot. Some materials are online.

Tampere Museums

The collections include the Haihara Doll and Costume Museum holdings, about 4,500 objects focusing on different types of dolls, plus around 1,100 other toys. The photo collections contain nearly 2,000 digitized images of play, and the archives hold Haihara documentation including toy catalogs, puppet theatre plays, and scrapbooks from the museum’s founding onwards. Some materials are online (Siiri, Finna).

Tampere Allotment Garden Museum

The collections contain occasional play- and childhood-related objects, such as swimming instruction vests. The photo collections include images of NTK festivals organized by children and youth for adults. The archives preserve memories of playground activities.

Theatre Museum

The Theatre Museum in Helsinki preserves some play-related objects, such as magician’s props, a magic lantern, and childhood belongings of performing artists. The collections also include material connected to performances for children.

Finnish Labour Museum Werstas

The Labour Museum Werstas in Tampere holds, among other things, toys used in schools for the deaf, Soviet toys, cards and posters featuring children as propaganda, toys from the Kivistö Crofter’s Museum, toys of rainbow families, and children’s drawings. The photo collections include OTK advertising images of children playing, photos of childcare by workers in the 1930s–1950s, Kansan Lehti images of children from the 1970s–1980s, and photos of the everyday lives and festivities of deaf children, as well as children and youth at demonstrations. The archives hold material on the operation of schools for the deaf. Some materials are online.

Uusikaupunki Museum

The Uusikaupunki Museum collections include hundreds of toys, the oldest from 19th-century bourgeois culture. Some materials are available in Finna.

Vantaa City Museum

The Vantaa City Museum collections include materials from kindergartens and schools, as well as children’s clothing. The photo collections include depictions of family life and children’s own documentation of their play. The archives preserve interviews and drawings from the Shared Play project and responses to a play survey conducted in the Kirkonkylä project. Some materials are available in Finna.

In Conclusion

Finland also has many private toy museums that are not professionally managed but are nevertheless valuable in presenting toy collections. These include, for example, the Porvoo Doll and Toy Museum and the toy museum connected with the Casagrande Toy Shop in Turku.