The American Rubber Duck Museum began with one small duck and a collection that grew over time.

What started as a personal collection eventually became something more. The more ducks I collected, the more I began wondering where they came from, who made them, why certain designs existed, and what stories had been lost along the way.

That curiosity became the foundation of The American Rubber Duck Museum—a project dedicated not simply to collecting rubber ducks, but to preserving their objects, documenting their history, and sharing the stories behind them.

Every duck has a story. The museum exists to help make sure those stories aren't lost.

Every Duck Has A Story.

This One Started Everything.

The American Rubber Duck Museum began with one small prize and one very important moment.

More than a decade ago, I received a rubber duck during my first training at my first major corporate job. That duck represented far more than completing a class. It reminded me that I had taken a courageous step into a new career, reached a milestone I had worked hard to achieve, and found a place where I belonged.

Her name is Hope, and she became Duck #0001—the founding artifact of The American Rubber Duck Museum.

What began as a symbol of personal achievement eventually became the beginning of a museum.

The duck that started it all.

Duck #0001

Object: Rubber duck

Museum number: #0001

Collection: Founding Collection

Significance: First duck in the collection and inspiration for the museum

Acquisition: Awarded during professional training

Hope

Founding Duck · DuckDex #0001

Hope was received as a training prize during a defining moment in founder Nichole Polster’s professional life. She became a symbol of courage, achievement, belonging, and the beginning of something meaningful.

Years before the museum had a name, a website, or a formal collection, Hope was already preserving its first story.

Hope was never intended to start a museum. She was simply the first duck in what became a collection—and, eventually, the object that marked the beginning of something much larger.

Discover Hope’s Full Story

One Duck Became Many

One duck became two. Then a few more. Before long, rubber ducks had become a collection.

They arrived as gifts, souvenirs, discoveries, and purchases. Some commemorated places or events. Others represented characters, holidays, occupations, brands, or simply an irresistible idea transformed into a duck.

Over time, the collection became more than rows of colorful objects. Certain ducks carried memories. Others raised questions. Some sparked stories about companies, designers, manufacturing, popular culture, and the people who owned them.

The collection was growing—but so was my curiosity about what these objects could tell us.

When a Collection Became a Mission

Eventually, collecting the ducks wasn't enough. I wanted to understand them.

Who designed them? Who manufactured them? When were they made? What materials were used? How were they advertised and sold? And how many of their stories had already disappeared because nobody thought to preserve them?

Answering those questions led beyond the ducks themselves—to patents, trade magazines, catalogs, advertisements, newspaper archives, company records, photographs, oral histories, and surviving packaging.

That was the turning point.

The collection had become a research project, and the research project had the potential to become a museum.

Why Build a Rubber Duck Museum?

Because these familiar little objects can tell surprisingly big stories.

Preserve

Protect the objects, packaging, advertisements, records, and stories that document rubber-duck history.

Research

Investigate the people, companies, materials, designs, and cultural moments behind the ducks.

Make those discoveries accessible so collectors, researchers, families, and future generations can explore them.

The museum is not being built simply to display thousands of ducks. It is being built to preserve and interpret the history behind them.

Building the Museum Today

The American Rubber Duck Museum does not yet have a permanent public building—but the work of building the museum is already underway.

Every object cataloged, source documented, historical question investigated, story shared, and relationship built contributes to the museum's foundation.

Today, that work centers on five areas:

The Next Chapter

The long-term vision is to give these stories a place visitors can experience for themselves.

A future American Rubber Duck Museum could bring together historic toys, advertisements, packaging, manufacturing history, popular culture, interactive exhibits, and thousands of ducks—not simply as a display of a collection, but as a way to explore the surprisingly rich history surrounding an everyday object.

There is still a great deal of work between today's research project and that future museum.

This website documents that journey as it happens.

Meet the Founder

I'm Nichole Polster, founder of The American Rubber Duck Museum.

I didn't begin as a toy historian or museum curator. I began as a collector.

Over time, collecting rubber ducks led me into questions about design, manufacturing, advertising, retail history, popular culture, and the people and companies behind the objects. What began as curiosity gradually became a commitment to documenting a history that is often scattered across surviving toys, old advertisements, patents, catalogs, archives, and people's memories.

Today, I'm building The American Rubber Duck Museum one object, one source, and one story at a time.

Founder & Chief Executive Duck Keeper

Every Discovery Adds to the Story

Much of rubber-duck history still awaits documentation.

Important evidence survives in family collections, old photographs, advertisements, catalogs, company records, packaging, forgotten boxes, and people's memories. Sometimes a single label, dated photograph, or recollection can answer a question—or open an entirely new one.

That's why the museum's story isn't being written from one collection alone.

Every new object, source, photograph, and firsthand account can add another piece to the history.

Become Part of the Next Chapter

The American Rubber Duck Museum is still being built, and you can still become part of its story in many ways.

You can share a memory, help identify a duck, contribute historical information, point the museum toward an overlooked source, donate an object or piece of ephemera, or simply follow the research as new discoveries are made.

Whether you remember a duck from childhood, worked for a company that made or sold them, have an old catalog tucked away, or simply share our curiosity, you may hold a piece of the history we're looking for.

Share Your Story

Explore the Collection

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