Perhaps this post should have been written sooner, but I’ve been traveling over the past week and I needed time to process one of the most painful losses I’ve ever endured.
On October 10, 2025, one of the longest running friendships in my life ended with the death of Joe Knedlhans. A retired NYC police officer, Joe was owner and curator of the Toy Robot Museum in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, otherwise known as the antiques capital of U.S.A. His shop and museum, filled with 3,000 toy robots from the past 60 years, was part of the original Stoudtburg Village nestled among eight miles of antique shops along Route 272.
After retiring from the NYC police department, Joe and his wife Margo Moore, a former Hollywood actress, moved to Adamstown in 2000. They had often visited the town to go antiquing and it was there that Margo bought Joe a toy robot as a gift. She gave him another for his birthday and again at Christmas. Three toy robots grew into nearly 3,000. They purchased a home in the Stoudtburg Village with their shop and museum on the first floor.
As Margo collected toy pigs and piggy banks, their business was initially called The Toy Robot and Pig Museum. After Margo died later in 2000, Joe changed the name to the Toy Robot Museum, but it would be another two years before he removed the pigs and filled in the last display cases with more robots.
My wife and I met Joe on a blistering day in August of 2002. Although I had been to Adamstown before, the Stoudtburg Village was new to me. All of the buildings were constructed in the style of of an old, quaint German village complete with center courtyard and fountain. It was at this fountain where a middle-aged was sweeping up with this back to us. He was the only other soul in sight.
My wife and I compared the experience to the classic TV series, The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan. We continued walking until we found the Toy Robot Museum at building #9 in the plaza. No sooner did we enter than the middle-aged man with the broom followed us and introduced himself as the curator of the museum, thus beginning a 22-year-long friendship.
The museum was a sight to behold. It was not a massive place, but Joe knew how to take advantage of space and filled the first floor with IKEA display cases with robots tastefully displayed and on some of the cases, playback devices mounted on the door would allow you to hear the original TV commercials for some of the toys with the press of a button. The museum also included a robot pinball machine and arcade game and even a few classic toys that visitors could play with including good ol’ Rock ‘Em Sock’Em robots.
Check out this thorough video tour of Joe’s museum from 2024.
In this video, Joe talks about the origins of his museum compliments of his wife, Margo.
And this one is from 2008 where a much younger Joe is interviewed about the museum.
You can Google the Toy Robot Museum and find dozens of videos about it.
In the early 2000s, Joe hosted annual gatherings of toy robot collectors. These events were called BotStock. People flew in from all over the country as well as Canada and Europe to attend the event and visit the antique shops along the “strip” looking for treasures. The group would gather for dinner, trading and buying robots from one another, and donating items to be raffled off as well as bringing swag items for everyone.
When BotStock faded away, my wife and I still visited Joe two to three times each year, especially for his birthday and around Christmas. We settled into a routine of stopping at Joe’s museum first in the morning to chat and drop off a little gift that sometimes included a toy robot as well as a signed copy of my latest book, and chocolates. After chatting with Joe for an hour or so, my wife and I would browse the antique shops then return just before closing to drive Joe to dinner. Sometimes we covered the meal, but most of the time, Joe treated us. He was generous that way, often declining payment when we wanted to buy something from his shop.
In May 2025, I emailed Joe to let him know that I would be passing Adamstown on my way to Maryland for an annual SF convention called Shore Leave. He replied that he was available that day and would be happy to see me. However, a month later, he followed up with sad news that his sister was in hospice in NYC and was declining quickly. I told him to contact me if there was anything he needed.
A few more weeks passed before he replied that she had died and as her executor, he would be overwhelmed for a while. Again, I offered assistance but never heard back. My next email to him in August just to check on him also went unanswered. Finally, in early October, I checked the Stoudtburg Village website on a whim and read a notice that the Toy Robot Museum was permanently closed.
I then checked Alphadrome, the online toy robot collectors’ forum and found no news about Joe. However, when I went back to the site over a week later, there was a long discussion thread about Joe’s death, which my wife and I confirmed when we found his obituary. I left a remembrance on the funeral home website as well as Alphadrome.
I was packing for a trip to western PA that week, but cleared my schedule for the Sunday after I returned. My wife and I agreed to drive out to Adamstown to check on the museum and see if we could learn how Joe had passed. Another member from Alphadrome met us out there and later in the day, the three of us went to dinner at Zia Maria’s Italian Restaurant at about the same time Joe would close his shop and go to dinner with my wife and me.
I tried to take some solace in the gorgeous autumn weather as my wife and I stood outside Joe’s dark and locked shop on Sunday morning instead of being inside laughing and chatting with him and deciding on where to go for dinner after he closed. But that solace wasn’t enough to compensate for the loss of our wonderful friend.
After inquiring with a few neighboring shopkeepers, we learned from Janet, the owner of Plum Pudding Antiques, that Joe had taken ill in early October and died in the hospital in Adamstown. She and her husband Tom were named as his executors.
More than once I had remarked to Joe that visiting him, his museum, the village, and Adamstown in general took me away from whatever stresses I was facing in my life and brought me peace and joy. That’s all lost now and it will be a while before I accept that. However, I am grateful to have known Joe and all the wonderful moments and memories that I’ll carry with me for the rest of my days. He brought enormous fun and friendship to all who knew him.
