Recently, Muncie native Brandon Mundell was out working in his front yard when a car drove by. The young boy in the passenger seat yelled out, “Hey, it’s the toy guy!”
Not many people, aside from perhaps Santa Claus, are referred to as the toy guy, but that’s pretty awesome – and accurate.
Mundell embodies the toy industry as the owner of Toys Forever Models & Hobbies, which first opened on Black Friday in 2007. Mundell dabbled in the hobby industry in his youth. At 16 he went into Gupta’s Hobby & Crafts, a local hobby store, to ask the owners to hire him. The proprietor invited him to come in and count inventory.
“I suspect she didn’t think I would last more than a week,” says Mundell. “But I settled into the job and worked there for six years.”
Mundell attended Burris Laboratory School from kindergarten through 12th grade, and went on to earn a degree in entrepreneurship and small-business management from Ball State University.
“In college I realized that while most people were going to football games, I preferred to be at the hobby shop,” Mundell says. “I had found my place in the world.”
After working in manufacturing for Overland Models, a model train design and importing business, for six years, he struck out on his own and opened Toys Forever Models & Hobbies, as his passion was always on the retail side of the hobby business.
Not only is Toys Forever Muncie’s only toy store, but it’s also East Central Indiana’s and western Ohio’s only toy model and hobby store. To find something similar, you’ll have to drive to Richmond, Marion or Fort Wayne.
“We are destination retail,” Mundell says. “Once people find us, they always come back.”
While Mundell isn’t opposed to technology, he finds real value in touching, feeling and testing things in person. “Our store is very touchable,” says Mundell, noting that they have demonstrations for most of their products. “We get products out of packaging so people can see them and we can educate them, as opposed to them grabbing something off the shelf and saying, ‘That’ll do.’”
“You do experience sensory overload when you first come in,” he adds. “There’s a lot to take in, so you won’t see it all the first time.”
No wonder. Toys Forever carries roughly 30,000 items, from games, puzzle, and brain teasers to remote-control cars that can reach speeds of 100 miles per hour. What’s great about Toys Forever is that every car they sell is repairable.
“When the crash happens, because we know it’s going to, we have a wall of parts so you can fix anything we sell,” Mundell says. “That’s where we give that value for your money, whereas a [radio-controlled] car from Amazon or a big-box store are what we call one-and-done toys because as soon as you bang it into something, it’s going into the trash and you basically lit whatever money you had on fire.”
Mundell likes selling toys that make minds work.
“I love to hide learning in toys,” he says with a chuckle. “Kids don’t even know what’s happening.”
They sell educational toys including the Melissa & Doug and Fat Brain brands. They also have a tightly curated game section. Mundell regularly demonstrates to his customers the card-based game called “Set” that’s all about recognizing patterns.
“It’s one of the best games ever in my opinion,” Mundell says. They also sell Shashibos, shape-shifting boxes that enable the player to create more than 70 shapes by connecting magnetic cubes. Originally, the company that makes them, Fun in Motion, sold four artwork designs. Now, eight years later, they have 55 designs.
“I display them all, which means I have all 55 designs out on the counter at all times,” says Mundell, who notes that a former employee, Ezra Crow, got incredibly good at manipulating the cubes – so much so that he impressed the big wigs at Fun in Motion.
“I told Ezra that they would end up hiring him away from me because he would wow them so much, and I was right,” Mundell says. Crow is now a national demonstrator for the Fun in Motion toy company and has his own Instagram channel to show off his talent.”
Although they sell everything in person via old-school retail, they’re also able to order hundreds of thousands of items for their customers.
“We’re not quite Prime fast, but we’re not far off,” he says.
No matter who walks into the store, Mundell lets them know there’s a product there for them.
“One of the most important rules in life that we tend to forget is that while we have to grow old, we don’t have to grow up,” he says.
So go ahead…be a kid and go see the toy guy!
Toys Forever Models & Hobbies is located inside the historic Goddard building in downtown Muncie at 300 South Walnut Street. For more information, call 765-288-6505 or visit toysforeverhobbies.com.
