Japanese toy collector Teruhisa Kitahara enjoys seeing people enthralled by his antique pieces. 'I think they are happy,' he says, watching parents and children gather around cabinets filled with rare items from his enormous collection. By 'they', Kitahara isn't referring to the visitors but his toys, the 'pieces of forgotten history' that he has spent more than 35 years gathering.
'Many toys [on display here] today were salvaged from the unfortunate war that broke out in the last century,' says Kitahara, 61. 'They are very lucky to have been saved and I think they are happy.'
Kitahara was in Hong Kong last week to open an exhibition of 700 toys from his collection of more than 50,000 items, ranging from tin vehicles produced during the 1930s and paper dolls to super alloy robots and contemporary action figures.
Excluding Japan, it's the first exhibition he has held in Asia and the collector says the aim of the show is to draw attention to toy preservation.
'I selected quite a number of tin toys for their amazing appearance, colours and range of motion. These tin toys were famous in the 1930s,' says Kitahara, who hosts several radio and television shows about rare toys and antiques in Japan.
Toys have been 'speaking' to him since he started collecting them as a 25-year-old, he says. 'Toys have feelings too. They don't want me to hide them away, but to show them to people,' he says. 'I feel heaven has given me the mission to preserve them as part of history.'