If you're a grown-up toy addict, Rainbow Crafts is the place for you: on the way into this small treasure trove of a shop in Dublin's Westbury Mall (next to the Westbury Hotel), note the brightly-coloured spinning tops, and see if they don't jog your memory.
They cost £7.99, and are part of the range of tin plate toys that adults like to collect. John Cunningham, a former army officer who opened the shop with his wife Barbara five years ago, stocks collector teddies suitable for children and adults, from £19 to over £100; rocking horses - from £50 to £1,000 - and beautiful hand puppets, both local and imported, from around £10 to £50. Children will love the toys here too, and there are plenty of stocking filler-priced items - like the little box puppet with three little mice for £9.99.
Rainbow Crafts also stocks 5,000 rubber stamps, and runs classes in creative stamping; it also has a Westbury Bear Club which meets regularly in the Westbury Hotel.
Cunningham's toyshop philosophy? "If you see it advertised on TV, we don't have it."
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