MINT Museum of Toys launches new Augmented Reality experience

MINT Museum of Toys, the world’s first purpose-built toy museum, has launched XperienceAR – an Augmented Reality (AR) experience incorporated into the exhibition space.

The award-winning museum, which showcases Asia’s largest collection of vintage toys, enamel signs and tin boxes from over 40 countries, had undergone extensive redevelopment work in 2020 before reopening in late 2021.

Visitors can top up an additional $10 on top of the regular admission tickets to redeem a pack of 37 Augmented Reality (AR) cards.

These AR cards can be scanned to trigger a multitude of touchpoints throughout the exhibitions, prompting the characters to share their history and cultural significance through a 2D or 3D experience. 

To scan these touchpoints, visitors must use the museum’s application which can be downloaded on the App Store or Google Play Store. 

Currently, the museum houses four permanent exhibitions – Outerspace, Characters, Childhood Favourites and Collectables for visitors to explore. 

The Outerspace exhibition comprises a comprehensive range of futuristic outer space toys such as the Space Super Jet Gun and Flash Gordon’s Signal Pistol. 

The exhibition symbolises humanity’s pursuit for technological modernity and encompasses toys produced during the Space Craze, which was a period of innovation in space travel between 1930s to 1960s. 

The Characters exhibition features popular culture characters around the world such as Batman and Betty Boop.

Due to their immense popularity, these character toys were often the most profitable to mass produce. Over the years, they became more scarce. Coupled with their vintage appeal, this made them novelty objects for collectors. 

The Childhood Favourites exhibition boasts a diverse collection of dolls and stuffed animals. 

These toys were often used to stimulate learning in children to help them develop useful skills such as empathy and storytelling. 

Visitors can look out for the rare Door of Hope Mission doll of a young girl dressed in traditional Chinese costume. 

The doll is one of 25 unique models, each representing the different social classes of the Chinese. 

As for the Collectables exhibition, it contains many vintage items ranging from Wonder Stories magazines to Singapore Tiger Standard newspaper dating back to the 1950s. 

Other notable items include Golliwog caricatures and dolls from Michael Lee, the last traditional doll maker in Hong Kong. 

The collection serves to educate visitors about social and political issues such as the prevalence of African American slavery in the past and the refugee crisis of Hong Kong.

Visitors are encouraged to start at level five (Outerspace) and make their way down as various installations have been set up at the stairways. 

These stairway installations consist of Vintage Decorative Tins, the Birth of Astro Boy, Spooky Horror, Bedtime Stories and the Beatles Memorabilia.

Visitors looking for souvenirs can patronise the museum’s MINT SHOP located at the entrance to purchase collectibles such as vintage tin toys. 

Keepsakes like pop culture pin badges are available for sale at the pushcart which can be found at the entrance of the museum as well. 

Tickets for general admission cost $25 for adults and $15 for children and senior citizens, and can be purchased here.