Istanbul Toy Museum — Attraction in Üsküdar

A journey To Your Childhood…

Visited the place in December 2022.

Turkish poet and author Mr. Sunay Akın established the museum in 2005. It was opened on April 23 on purpose. On this day Turkiye celebrates the National Sovereignty and Children’s day.

Akın assembled his toy collection from more than forty countries in a 20-year time period. His mainly got the inspiration from a toy museum in Nürnberg-Germany in 1990, and laid the foundations of the Istanbul Toy Museum with a toy horse he purchased from an antique shop in Germany. Working on his project over 15 years, he collected 7000 antique toys.

The toy museum consists of 4000 toys on displays at this four-story building.

The interior décor and displays were arranged by a professional stage designer. Each room resembles a unique theater stage.

The toy museum become a role model for other museum to be established countrywide.

The tour takes about 1-3 hours depending on your attention to detail. The displays have tons of information about the illustrated toys and scenes. The country origin, date, and the purpose etc.

After the tour, you can enjoy sipping your coffee/tea at the cafe on the cellar floor.

The staircase is a bit narrow, yes indeed! But tell me how you would fit all these toys in here?

The artistic bollards at the front gate deserve a selfie shootout :)

Overall rating 4.6/5...

This is a TOURIST TRAP. We got ripped off! At the door, there was no price list. The young lady at the counter used an old-fashioned calculator and she talked very quickly so I couldn't quite follow what she said. She calculated 350 TL per adult and 300 per child. We were with 4 kids so we had to pay 1900 TL. But I remember that it should be a lot cheaper. I commented on that and she mentioned the word "tourist". And that internet was wrong and that the true price was on the website.

The kids were cranky and tired and wanted to go in. I was distracted by that, so we paid and went inside.

Inside, it was quite disappointing. It is not interactive at all. Only very old toys from various regions of the world, but mostly Germany, France, Japan and the United States. I think some toys were even labelled wrong (Dutch flag but labelled 'France').

Once we went through, I went back to the counter and asked what the deal was with the admission money because we overpaid. She said it's all on their website, that tourists have to pay more. I had no internet connection so I couldn't check. She was persistent. I called it very rude, a rip-off. She didn't care.

Back at the apartment, I checked and it should've been 690TL. We paid about tripple. Don't go here! it's not even...

An amazing museum without elevator! I loved this place too much. Worthy collection of toys. Thousands of toys are beautifully demonstrated. The museum building is a five floor beautiful building. each floor has three or four rooms and each room is dedicated to special category. Even the music and sounds you hear is designed specially for that special category. Every part of this museum is telling story. The coffee shop, corridors, even the toilet is designed and decorated artistically. I wish it was suitable for Elderly, disabled or disabled people since It was not equipped with an elevator. I also had a special experience which was so unique. Closely to the time that went there an earthquake had happened in the eastern cities of Turkey and the people had brought their toys to send them for earthquake affected areas. It was really special moments, seeing them organizing and packing the toys by a lot of kind volunteers and employees. The ticket price was 90₺ for a turkey residents and 250₺...