Richmond, Virginia's Museum Shops
Perfect Spots for Buying Souvenirs and Bring-Home Gifts
Mar 20, 2008
With everything from Confederate memorabilia to garden furniture for sale, Richmond's museums offer shopping opportunities galore for museum goers.
Richmond, Virginia is wewll known for its more than two dozen museums. What most visitors don't realize is that the museum shops are great places to buy souvenirs and bring-home gifts.
- The Shop in the Garden at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens carries nature-related items such as butterfly-patterned cutting boards, flower-shaped umbrellas and paperweights with bouquets of tiny wildflowers inside. Wrought iron garden furniture, stylish scarves and hundreds of books on plant-related subjects are among other popular buys. For youngsters, you’ll find everything from punch-out bird masks to magnifying glasses with bug handles.
- Merchandise at the Aviation Museum store includes Hot Wings Apache helicopters, space shuttles, Curtiss Jenny bi-planes and other mini-aircraft models. Commercial airline and Air Force One model sets (the latter includes limo, helicopter and Secret Service vehicle) are also favorites. For youngsters, there are Teddy Bear pilots, complete with bomber jackets, helmets and goggles. Plastic hi-bounce balls with airplanes inside, Astronaut Ice Cream and “Century of Flight” Monopoly-format games.
- Kidshop at the Children’s Museum of Richmond offers a wide selection of adorableanimal hand puppets – green plush frogs and turtles, cuddly bears and fuzzy raccoons. The Sand Art kits contain sticky surface bases and about a dozen different colors of sand in skinny tubes.
- Sure-to-please choices from The Museum Store at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) include julep cups adapted from a silver beaker in the museum’s collection, miniature clocks in the Glasgow-style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and hand-blown paperweights by Virginia artist Herland Ort.
- Science Museum Store stand-outs include sparkling DNA mobiles, CD albums ofAnimusic (computer generated music) and glow-in-the-dark solar systems. The games, which youngsters can audition by playing them in-store, are designed to make players think laterally, critically and empirically – just like scientists.
- Nature’s the theme of most merchandise, including ladybug and turtle umbrellas, Butterfly “Pot Hugs” which clip onto plant containers and pastel-colored mini-bird houses in the Maymount Shop at Maymount Foundation.
- Kwaanza ceremonial chalices and carved wooden kinaras (traditional candle holders) echo Black History Museum’s focus. Also for sale, kalimbas, sometimes called thumb pianos, have been part in African culture for 800 years. The hand-held instruments’ sounds are created by the vibration of the thumb across metal tines. In addition to menorahs and mezuzahs, best sellers at Beth Ahabah Museum & Archives small gift shop include suncatchers in the design of the synagogue’s art nouveau stained glass ceiling and Tiffany Windows coloring books.
- Children will be delighted with the replicas of early American toys – marbles andpewter jacks in leather drawstring bags at Pusey Museum Shop at the Virginia Historical Society Museum . Lavishly illustrated coffee table books on landscape architecture in Virginia, CD albums with titles like Songs of the South and Country Mountain Classics, and coin silver serving spoons dating back to 1795 are among items appealing to adults.
- The Poe Museum Gift Shop at Edgar Allan Poe Museum features an extensivecollection of Edgar Allan Poe books and souvenirs. Mouse pads bearing the author’s portrait and neckties embellished with small ravens (available in silver gray, royal blue and crimson) are also popular.
- Shoppers seeking the perfect gift for a Civil war buff, mustn’t miss The Haversack Store at The Museum and White House of the Confederacy. Among big ticket items are limited edition working LeMat Tribute (a combination revolver-shotgun) and reproductions of Robert E. Lee’s camp chest, made of black walnut.
Each year, 18 of the city’s museum stores hold a Museum Fair during the last weekend in October. See visit.richmond for details.
The copyright of the article Richmond, Virginia's Museum Shops in Virginia Travel is owned by Connie Emerson. Permission to republish Richmond, Virginia's Museum Shops in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
