Touring the Museum

Every where you look you will see NUTCRACKERS...different styles of wooden toy soldier nutcrackers, the name used for the colorful German figures of Steinbach, Ulbricht, and the Erzgebirge makers.

You will see the Betel cutters from Asia, the beautifully carved wooden figurals from Europe, the precious ivory and porcelains, the silver that matched the Victorian tableware, or the conventional utility type strong enough to conquer the black walnuts.

You will find hand-held metal nutcrackers in beautiful designs as well as those more crudely crafted in blacksmith shops.

You will see beautifully carved ebony and boxwood figures, so durable they have withstood hundreds of years. And nutting bowls...artifacts found in the southeastern United States and Europe which date back thousands of years.

There are different ways to crack a nut...direct pressure, indirect pressure, screw, and percussion, and you will find them all in the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum. The creativity of man is vividly portrayed in the many ways he used to crack a nut.

A lift has been added for the handicapped, and the museum has been expanded to approximately 3,000 square feet to show 7000 nutcrackers from the collection. You will be amazed at the many different ways that a nut can be cracked!