Irving’s Toy & Card Shop Is Having a Pop-Up Sale

Photos via Irving Toy & Card Shop’s Facebook page

It’s your last chance to peruse treasures from the time capsule that is Irving’s Toy & Card Shop. The store is hosting a pop-up sale on Labor Day weekend, and will offer up much of the leftover inventory it’s kept since closing last year.

Irving’s owner and founder, Ethel Weiss, passed away at 101 years old in December 2015. Weiss worked there almost every day, helping children select the perfect candies, school supplies, toys, and other baubles.

An equally delightful array of board games, vintage greeting cards, plastic toys, and candy will be available at the pop-up sale. Organized by Weiss’s daughter, Anita Jamieson, along with Daphne Strassmann, the sale has been dubbed an “everything must go” event. The sale’s proceeds will be given to the parent-teacher organization at Brookline’s Edward Devotion Elementary School, which is next door to the red-and-white striped shop. The remaining toys will be donated to charity.

Irving’s had been a fixture of Coolidge Corner for 76 years. Weiss opened the Harvard Street store in 1939 with her first husband, Irving Kravetz. Many nostalgic Yelpers have written about their experiences with Irving and Ethel, describing the joy the store brought to both young and old alike.

“It is the most charming little store you will find anywhere,” wrote one reviewer.

Strassmann has been sifting through the shop’s colorful knickknacks and posting photos on the shop’s Facebook page. “Still finding more of Ethel’s whimsical touches in every part of the store,” she wrote in a post on Monday. You can see some of the toys up for sale here and in the sale’s Facebook event.

The pop-up sale will be held Thursday, September 1, from 5-7 p.m., and Friday, September 2, through Sunday, September 4, from 11 a.m.-6 p.m at Irving’s Toy & Card Shop, 371 Harvard St, Brookline, irvings.toys.