MINT Museum of Toys

Somewhere in here is the toy your mother threw away.

MINT is the rainy-afternoon museum for nostalgic adults, and it works best with someone a decade older or younger than you, so you can argue about whose childhood was better. Small children are the compromise: this is a look-don't-touch building, and the pull is recognition rather than play. Start on the Outerspace floor, and check the official site for hours and tickets before you go.

Most museums want you to learn something. MINT mainly wants you to remember something: the exact tin robot, Batman figure or wind-up rocket you owned, lost and never stopped thinking about. The name stands for Moment of Imagination and Nostalgia with Toys, which is earnest, but the experience is closer to a very good attic.

It is the work of one collector, Chang Yang Fa, the museum's founding CEO. His collection runs to about 50,000 vintage toys and collectables from 54 countries, made between the 1840s and the 1980s, and only a curated slice is out at any one time. MINT bills itself as the largest vintage toy museum in Asia, or South-east Asia, depending on which page you read. Either way, it is a lot of toys.

The building is half the fun. Designed by SCDA Architects and opened on Seah Street in 2007, it is a narrow, purpose-built block fronted by 26 glass panels arranged in a wave, set up to keep out the light that would fade the exhibits. The museum says it is the first in the world built specifically for toys, and the design collected international architecture prizes in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Inside, each floor has a theme: Outerspace, Characters, Childhood Favourites and Collectables, with smaller shows in the stairwells covering Astro Boy's origins, horror toys, bedtime stories and Beatles memorabilia, and enamel advertising signs up on the roof. The pieces worth hunting for are what the museum describes as the only known Mekon mask from the British comic Dan Dare, a century-old Steiff teddy bear and an Alice in Wonderland doll once owned by Alice Liddell herself. Look out too for the display comparing American- and British-made Mickey Mouse toys, and what is billed as the world's largest collection of Door of Hope dolls.

MINT also runs temporary shows and events, including workshops through the SG Culture Pass, so it is worth a look at the programme before you go. Hours and ticket prices have shifted over the years; the current ones are in the facts box. It is a short walk from Bugis or City Hall MRT, and the right answer to a wet Saturday in town (it beats a fourth lap of the same mall).

Good to know MINT is at 26 Seah Street, a short walk from Bugis and City Hall MRT. Check emint.com for current hours, exhibitions and ticket prices before you go.

MINT Museum of Toys | 26 Seah Street, Singapore 188382 | Nearest MRT: Bugis, City Hall