The Strong and Spin Master Form Partnership

ROCHESTER, New York—The Strong and Spin Master (the largest privately held toy company in North America) are pleased to announce a collaboration to create through donation by Spin Master a collection of archival materials related to the history of the company, as well as a collection of toys and other artifacts of play produced by the company over time. The Strong will be the sole repository for Spin Master’s archival collections and the major repository for its artifacts. The two organizations will also explore the feasibility of creating interactive exhibit experiences based around one or more of Spin Master’s products or brands.

“After review of our internal archives and upon reflection of our 20-year rise as an industry leader in children’s entertainment, we decided to seek out The Strong to ensure that our history is preserved and our achievements contextualized by a world-class museum,” says Anton Rabie, co-founder and co-CEO of Spin Master. “The Strong is also the ideal partner to collaborate with on potential interactive exhibit spaces.”

The archival collection will include design documents, promotional materials, concept art, and business records that tell the story of Spin Master from the founders’ first business venture in college (1993) to 2014. The artifact collection will include product samples, prototypes, and unreleased products. The Strong intends to make these one-of-a-kind materials available to researchers and scholars, and they will sit alongside other company collections such as the Fisher-Price Collection, Louis Marx Collection, and Atari Coin-Op Division Collection.

“This partnership allows the museum to add to our deep collections of toy and video game company records—all of which are essential to telling the story of play,” says G. Rollie Adams, president and CEO of The Strong.

Some of the materials will also be available to guests through display or exhibition at times to be established later. The Strong and Spin Master also plan to explore the feasibility of creating at The Strong one or more interactive, educational experiences or exhibits related to invention and innovation, particularly as those relate to the history and creative processes of Spin Master.

About The Strong

The Strong is the only collections-based museum in the world devoted solely to play. It is home to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the National Toy Hall of Fame, the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, the Woodbury School, and the American Journal of Play and houses the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of historical materials related to play. Known widely as the nation’s museum of play, The Strong blends the best features of both history museums (extensive collections) and children’s museums (high interactivity) to explore the ways in which play encourages learning, creativity, and discovery and illuminates cultural history. The Strong is actively collecting toy company archives and collections, and for more information, contact Christopher Bensch at cbensch@museumofplay.org.

About Spin Master Ltd.

A multi-category children’s entertainment company, Spin Master has been designing, developing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer products for children around the world since 1994 and is recognized as a global leader within the toy industry. Spin Master is best known for award winning, innovative brands including Zoomer™, Air Hogs®, and Spin Master Games™ including 2014 Game of the Year, Boom Boom Balloon ™. In 2014 Spin Master acquired the international Meccano™ brand and re-launched the iconic construction toy with Meccanoid G15 KS™, introducing robotics and embracing the global Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) movement. In 2015 the company expanded their reach within children’s media and entertainment, launching SpindoTV, a YouTube channel dedicated to broadcasting Spin Master Entertainment’s original television and media properties, including the hit animated preschool series, PAW Patrol™. Spin Master employs over 900 people with offices in Toronto, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Munich, and Milan and launched their own ecommerce site (http://shop.spinmaster.com/) in early 2015.