What inspired the idea of owning a toy museum?
My dad, Richard Pearson, Sr., has been a big comic book collector. He used to work at a comic shop when he was younger, and he’s always dreamed of owning his own shop. He retired from his career during COVID and started buying and selling collections out of his basement, and it became a hobby for him.
I have three siblings on my dad’s side: my brothers Zachary and Jacob, and my sister Bailey. My younger brother, Jacob, has autism, so Dad wanted to start something that Jacob could be involved with. That started the idea of a comic book shop.
One day, when my family was down at their house in Vermont, Dad and Jacob went out to an antique mall to do some antiquing. At the top of the mall was the Vermont Toy Museum. They checked it out. When they reached the end of it, they noticed a sign saying everything was for sale. My dad took a picture of it and called the number to see where the conversation would go. He reached Gary Neil, the owner of the museum. He and Gary hit it off. Gary also has a son with autism who was involved with the museum in Vermont. Gary had been collecting and curating the museum for over 40 years. He never sold any of the collection — everything he accumulated found a spot in the museum or it went up to the attic when the museum was full. Over the last five to 10 years, there was an overflow of items purchased that were not in the museum.
Gary had a bunch of people interested in buying the museum but they all wanted to buy it and piece it out and basically sell off the whole collection. Gary wanted it to stay as a museum and not go in multiple directions. There would be no toy museum that way. So, Dad promised him that ninety percent of Gary’s museum would go into our museum but that we would change out some things. They came to an agreement, and Dad loaded up three 58-foot semi-trucks and shipped everything from Vermont to here in Sarasota.
This really just started with Dad wanting to have a family business that everybody could work at and enjoy.
A central attraction at the museum is the HO-scale train layout. Tell us about that.
The layout was originally built by David Frary about 40 years ago. It took him two years to complete the model railroad. It’s a representation of the Green Mountains of Vermont. As you walk around the 20 x 30-foot layout, it changes to capture all four seasons. There are also over 10,000 handmade and painted trees on the layout that David did himself. It has five functional tracks, each with its own train that goes around the loop. We just purchased iPads and the Sarasota Bay Model Railroad Society is going to sync those iPads to four of the trains so people can come in and operate the them.
The railroad came out here in probably over 100 pieces. We had no idea how to put it back together. There were no directions, pieces everywhere. That’s how Dad discovered the Sarasota Bay Model Railroad Society. We were fortunate to team up with them. They restored the entire thing and got it running again within six months. They are continuing to make upgrades. They’ve already added a piece to the original layout that they call “the yard”. It will be a place where people can bring their own HO-scale trains on days when the train club is here. They are also going to be making the ski lifts functional again, and they’re going to tie all five tracks together so the trains can alternate the tracks they’re running.
It used to be coin-operated, but we got rid of that feature, and now it runs for free. It takes up about a quarter of the museum. It’s fascinating to look at. There’s so much detail. The work that was put into it is incredible.
What other toys and games are featured at the museum?
When you come into the museum, we have a front case that serves as an introduction to toys from all different eras.
As you start walking around the museum, we have cases that feature toys from the ’50s, ”60s, 70s, ’80s, and ’90s. One of the most popular ones is a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots in the original box. That seems to draw people in. We are fortunate enough to have two of those in the original boxes. We also have one in our retail store, Moosehead Toys and Comics. It’s not for sale, but we wanted the retail space to feel a little like a museum environment, so we do have a lot of cool stuff scattered throughout the shop.
We have over 600 metal lunch boxes, including Hopalong Cassidy, the first character-licensed lunchbox.
Our oldest toys are cap guns going back to the late 1800s. We also have tin toys from the late 1800s and early 1900s. It’s just incredible how well they are built. They were built to last and made with quality materials. It’s not something you would see on the shelf today by any stretch of the imagination. It’s interesting when you look at the cases as they go from year to year. You see things shift from being well made with quality materials to plastic.
We also have one of the first robot toys — a 1940s Atomic Robot Man from Japan. I think the robot display is probably Dad’s favourite exhibit in the museum. There are a lot of 1950s and ’60s robots and space toys. We have unlicensed Snoopy robot space toys from the 1960s from Japan. They’re nearly impossible to find, so that’s another unique piece we have.
Moosehead Toys and Comics is the home of the Sarasota Toy Museum. They’re connected. As soon as you walk into our building, you’re in the retail store, and then the museum is on the back end. Dad always wanted to have a comic shop, and by luck, he found the Toy Museum, and it expanded into that. His thought process was that not a lot of people were going to come down to a comic shop who weren’t interested in comics, but everybody would be interested in going to a toy museum. The retail store has everything from vintage to new toys, sports cards, and trading card games like Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and One Piece. We also have graded and ungraded comics, Sideshow statues, Funko Pops. Do you remember going to McDonald’s or Toys”R”Us where they had a PlayStation stand with a small screen and two controllers? We have an original one of those and an Atari machine with multiple games on it. We have all the different gaming systems from over the years — Sega Genesis, GameCube, Xbox. We will rotate a different gaming console and games each month so people can come in and play them in the shop for free.
We are working on a new display with a gentleman who makes these really crazy LEGO builds. We will have a case just for his builds. We’re also going to create a case for people to bring in their own collections and have the opportunity to display them.
There’s something for everybody here.
What do you hope people take away from their time exploring the museum?
We hope it brings back a lot of good memories and nostalgia for people, which, so far, from what I’m hearing from people walking through, it has. We want them to come in and enjoy themselves. We also want them to go home and think about the things that they saw in the museum, and think about the times that they had playing with those toys, or giving those toys to their children, or playing with those toys with their children, and seeing things that they’ve never seen, seeing things that they wanted when they were a kid and never had, or seeing their favourite toy that they haven’t seen since their youth.
That’s our main goal with the museum — to get people back into their feelings … the good feelings.
How can people support the museum?
There are many ways people can support us.
Sharing what we’re posting on our social media is always great, or even just giving us a follow or a like to help spread the word.
People are more than welcome to bring in donations. Some donations will go into the museum, and some will go into the retail store to help keep the museum running.
One really important thing about the museum is that it will be free for all special-needs children and adults. When they come in, they’re an instant VIP. We’re currently working with the special-needs group that is creating VIP badges for us to give to them on a lanyard. They’ll come in, show us their VIP badge, and be free to go into the museum at their leisure. It’s a judgment-free zone. If they want to take off their shoes or scream and run around, they can. They are allowed to be themselves.
We will welcome school groups and provide some educational programming. We are working on putting QR codes on each display so you’ll be able to walk in and scan the code to learn more about what’s in the display case and the key pieces. We are going to be bringing down not just school groups, but we’ve also been working with some of the senior developments so they can come down in groups.
Our first big event will be our official grand opening in mid-October. We will have local artists come down for that event to exhibit their work throughout the museum. We are planning dollar comic book events in the parking lot. We have plans to do cosplay Fridays, where if you come down to the museum dressed in cosplay, you’re admission will be free. We want to do gaming tournaments in the museum as well.
Learn more about the Sarasota Toy Museum and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.