Article: What is the best museum GIFT SHOP you've been to?

I’ll get the replies started. I especially enjoyed the V&A museum gift shop in London last summer.

I am a fan of gift shops, I usually enjoyed them all. Thus far my favourite ones are: Tate Modern in London, Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Museo Carmen Thyssen in Malaga, IKEA Museum in Almhult and Louisiana Museum near Copenhagen.

One really good one in Washington DC is the National Building Museum.

I love just about every museum gift shop that I've ever been to, but would definitely have to concur with the ones above. And the ones in the article look wonderful! In fact, I just added a couple to my England itinerary, like the London Transport Museum shop, and the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall (which, luckily, I had planned on visiting this trip).

I can tell you that I head for the gift shop of the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis every time I'm in the neighborhood because their goods are always unique and interesting and just lovely.

I love all museum gift shops. The 3 that come to mind as outstanding: The Louvre, The London Transport Museum (I still have my framed poster I got there in 1984) and Buckingham Palace during open days. However, my very favorite gift shops are at any National Trust property. I have gotten so many wonderful gifts for me and family & friends in those. They aren't usually very large, but the gifts are very high quality.

I also love a museum gift shop. The one at the Van Gogh museum stands out in my mind. Also the V&A. And the Prado museum shop.
But I have to differ with their choice of the Brooklyn Museum gift shop. We go there often and the gift shop is 1/4 of it’s original size and just so-so.

PS, I was just at the MOMA gift shop in NYC yesterday and picked up some art supplies for my granddaughter.

I also love the shop in the London Natural History Museum, especially things there for kids.

Thanks for posting such a fun article!

I would add the gift shop at the Belvedere in Vienna. The "Kiss" magnet I bought there is one of my favorites. I was hoping to get a "Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer I" magnet at the Neue Gallery, but they were far too grand for magnets, at least in 2019.

In London: The gifts shops at British Museum and the William Morris Society Museum.

One of my favourites was at The Tenement House Museum in NYC.
Great tour there as well.

London:
V&A Museum gift shop
British Museum gift shop
Tower of London gift shop--in the basement of the White Tower--excellent selection of books.
Westminster Abbey's gift shop--sep. entrance from the Abbey itself--no charge to enter gift shop--excellent selection of books, CD's of organ music, hymns, evensong.
The Museum of London gift shop--museum currently closed, but opening up soon in their new location.

I do love gift shops--especially if they have handmade or unique items that are tempting besides my usual purchases of tea towels and magnets.

National Museum of Scotland--Edinburgh
Royal Yacht Britannia--Edinburgh
London Transport Museum
V&A
British Library
British Museum
Canterbury Cathedral
Vatican Museum
Hungarian Open Air Museum (Skanzen) in Szentendre
Pompidou in Paris
New York Public Library
Tenement House

In England.....

1. The Imperial War Museum in London, wide selection and choice of books pertinent to the subject.

2. The Bovington Tank Museum/Dorset ....a more limited selection of books, prior the gift shop offered a huge selection of books pertinent to the topic.

New York’s MMA is quite wonderful. I still wear earrings bought there (based on works of art/jewellery in the collection) in the 1980s. The V&A is also fabulous.

Yes. For National Trust sites.
For a tangential statement , last week at a local thrift shop I acquired a Kandinsky mug from the guggenheim museum mostly because the shape and significant weight pleased me. I paid 3 bucks, it's still on their website for 28$ 😄 sadly that probably means it flew from NY to Iowa in someone's suitcase for gramma? The cat sitter ? The piano 🎹 teacher? And it went straight to the thrift shop

The Ixchel Museum shop in Guatemala City was wonderful. Full of Mayan textiles on all kinds of things from large items to luggage tags and bookmarks. Loved it.

Both in London - a toss up between The British Library and the V&A.

I was thinking about this thread again and another great museum shop popped up - Versailles.

The museum shop in Versailles is worth spending some time. I saw it this last trip, had not seen it in decades and was impressed at the breadth of its choices. I liked the children's section on French history, plus detailed books on Napoleon in English. Those were a pleasant surprise as I didn't expect to see them , except those in the original French.

Museum gift shops have become something I've started to really look forward too. The Prado Museum gift shop, though small, had some beautiful things. I use my bookmarks from there every day.

I suppose you could say that Käthe-Wohlfahrt is the Gift Shop for Rothenburg ob der Tauber, where their head office is. I have a number of their little trinkets, and due to its size and number of shops in the town, it is up there knocking on the door of Best.

Nigel, my Kathe trinkets and I salute your taste on this matter

I agree with many mentioned above, too, but to get us off the beaten path I will mention the gift shop / bookstore of the sephardic museum of Toledo, also known as the Transito Sinagoga:

https://www.cultura.gob.es/msefardi/en/home.html

Great textiles and clothing item as well as books --learning from the exhibits here enriches your sightseeing in the rest of Castile.

thumbnail history of the building here:
https://www.cultura.gob.es/msefardi/en/museo/museoenmonumento.html

I’ve thought of another one: The Rooms, the wonderful museum detailing the history of Newfoundland.
It’s in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

In the book shops of the big history museums, eg, the French Army Museum , the Imperial War Museum in London or the National Army Museum in Chelsea/London, or that in Vienna, the HGM (Army History Museum) etc, I look at the breadth of the book selection, obviously, those in French and the German, but also which books they have in English too.

Re: just to "visit for itself." Those which have free access get first priority, such as in the IWM in London, HGM in Vienna, I always check with the Army Museum in Les Invalides to see the latest offerings

The Illinois Holocaust Museum. Most museum gift shops sell trinkets and other tacky souvenirs. The Illinois Holocaust Museum is almost a book store.

A close second is the New Globe Theater in London, https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/) for much of the same reason.

More broadly, virtually any museum in Ireland. The museum gift shops in Eire have substance.