Collector turns hobby into museum

The museum is located in a renovated 1906 Victorian schoolhouse.
WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) -- Allan Raymond Miller took his obsession with toys and turned it into a museum.
But it's not just his toys that are on display amid the 100,000 items he's collected. Chances are you'll find something from your childhood, too.
"Our stock and trade is in people's memories," said Miller, curator of the Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum in Wheeling. "People tend to forget their day-to-day troubles here."
On display
Tin doll houses, Matchbox cars, Chatty Cathy dolls, Thomas the Train and Johnny West are just a few of the toys on display at the family-operated museum, located in a renovated 1906 two-story Victorian schoolhouse.
The museum features 10 themed toy rooms, activities for children, working train displays and a gift shop. Miller amassed the collection with the help of his father, who also has a passion for toys. Some 20,000 items are on view at any one time.
"I think this is every collector's dream to put it out there and share it with the public," said Miller, a former chemistry teacher.
Bill and Maria Spencer and their three children were looking for a break from their trek from Texas to their home in Williamstown, N.J., last summer when they spotted a sign along Interstate 70 advertising the museum. Their youngest son liked the trains, but the parents were just as pleased to find toys from their youth when they stopped their last summer.
Fond memories
Bill showed the kids how "Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots" threw punches at the push of a button, while Maria laughed when seeing the Marie and Donny Osmond dolls she had as a girl.
"It's important for our kids to see what we had as kids," Bill said.
A large part of the museum's collection is devoted to model trains, mostly Lionel, which Miller and his father started collecting in the mid-1970s.
"We started out with trains ... and then you find things that you say 'Wow, this really looks nice, it's not the right size for our train but I'm going to get it anyway."'
Miller has purchased the majority of his collection, but some toys have either been donated or loaned to the museum.
"People feel like this is a place they can take their stuff and it will be cared for," said Miller, who continues to collect toys.
Old and precious
One of the oldest and most precious of his toys is a wind-up metal Tut-Tut toy, produced between 1893 and 1910 by Lehmann, a German toy maker. The toy, which features a man blowing a horn while driving a car, belonged to his aunt.
"That is one of those items that we will never part with. I don't know what it's worth and I don't care."
Much of the collection comprises toys produced by Louis Marx, such as the "Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots." Between the 1940s and 1960s, Marx Toys Co. was the largest toy maker in the United States.
"He was so innovative and he made a little bit of everything," Miller said.
The largest of Marx's three factories was in Glen Dale, about 12 miles from Miller's museum. The plant closed in 1982. Another toy museum dedicated to Marx Toys is located in Glen Dale.
Large collection
Miller's collection includes a room full of Marx prototype toys. Many items came from Marx employees.
The collection includes a 6-inch-tall dental plaster mold of President Eisenhower, carved Big Wheel pedal tricycles, half-painted doll chimneys and hand-carved food items -- painted different colors to see which looked best for the kitchen sets.
The prototype room "shows you something about the process of how the toy was made," said Stevanne Auerbach, known as Dr. Toy, who has written 15 books on toys and children's products.
Toy museums like Miller's are important to the history of American culture, Auerbach added.
"There is an opportunity to appreciate the toy as an art piece, a piece of design, a piece of play, an object for play that has a historical significance," she said.
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