Tomy Pokémon Toys: Museum Object and Cultural History

Tomy Pokémon Toys: maker: TOMY. maker: Nintendo Co., Ltd.. Object Name: toy.

By the Pop Culture Files editorial team•Updated September 29, 2026•2 min read•✓ Fact-checked

Editorial graphic for: Tomy Pokémon Toys: Museum Object and Cultural History — Editorial graphic by Pop Culture Files · not a photograph

The object in the museum catalogue

These three toys represent various figures from the Pokémon gaming franchise. The first object, resembling the character Pidgeotto, looks like a pigeon at rest with a yellow, brown, and red color palette. The second object, resembling the character Zapdos, looks like a large bird with wings fully extended and has a red and yellow color palette. The third object, resembling the character Moltres, looks like a bird with sharp, jagged, extended wings and a yellow, orange, and black color palette. All three were made by the Tomy Corporation. The maker field denotes the copyright holder. These figures were most likely created and sold for the Japanese market. The Pidgeotto figure has an inscription on its back noting "C/G/T/S/4" while the other two only show the figures "C/G". The copyright for Nintendo is in the Japanese language, which is indicative of figure manufactured in the early days of Pokémon figure production (1997?) by Tomy. It no longer appears on more recent figures.

Materials, dates and provenance

maker: TOMY
maker: Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Object Name: toy
Physical Description: paint (overall material)
Physical Description: plastic (overall material)
Measurements: pidgeotto: 1 29/32 in x 1 in x 1 29/32 in; 4.826 cm x 2.54 cm x 4.826 cm
Measurements: moltres: 2 1/4 in x 1 1/2 in x 1 13/32 in; 5.715 cm x 3.81 cm x 3.556 cm
Measurements: zapdos: 1 13/32 in x 2 5/32 in x 1/2 in; 3.556 cm x 5.461 cm x 1.27 cm
place made: China
Associated Place: United States: Pennsylvania, Japan
Associated Place: Japan
ID Number: 2016.3016.15
nonaccession number: 2016.3016
catalog number: 2016.3016.15
Credit Line: Judy Gradwohl
Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.