Magazines touch on a wide range of topics, and toys and collectibles are no exception to this medium. Before the rise of online shopping and tailored advertisements, consumers and companies alike relied on magazines to connect with products. Toy magazines date back as far as 1859 - Ninth Annual Illustrated Price List for 1868, of Children’s Carriages, Sleds and Toys by Ellis, Britton & Eaton of Vermont Quality Works is held at the National Museum of American History Library, one of many subject libraries operated by the Smithsonian. 

Toys can serve a variety of purposes. Dolls and other human stand-ins can help foster social skills in young children, while model-building teaches them finer motor skills. Some children desire toys from certain franchises due to their love or interest in that franchise, while others may have their media interests influenced by the toys themselves instead. Even into adulthood, the interest in toys shifted from playing and learning them, to collecting and appreciating them. Publications contended with a wide variety of not only direct consumer interest, but also with the desire to market newer products to existing clientele, or market older products to former clientele. Driven by this increased need for and role of magazines as pseudo sales catalogues, more and more publications were produced to fill any and every niche imaginable. As the decades progressed, and successive generations began to use the internet to fill the same gap that magazines once did, publishers began to make the switch to digitized content as a replacement. While magazines are still produced which cater to toys, collectibles, and the brands associated with them, the internet has allowed for much of this information to be found outside of the traditional publishers and thus the continuation of many of these publications either sought their future online, or through alternative means.

The magazines on display in this exhibit are from the Samir Husni Magazine Collection, which was donated to the University of Missouri in 2022. Husni collected and donated over 32,000 magazines varying in topic from camping & outdoor recreation to military & naval periodicals. This exhibit covers a small portion of this total collection, primarily focused on toys and collectibles from 1987 - 2006, and highlights fifteen specific magazines covering a diverse type of toys, collectibles, parenting guides, and more.