Marvin Yagoda, founder of the popular Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Farmington Hills, died Sunday evening.
Yagoda is famous for collecting coin-operated machines and sharing them with the public at his museum, which has been featured on numerous lists of unusual and fun outings and birthday parties for people of all ages. The museum's website said he started the collection in 1960. His museum opened in 1980. (Watch the video above for our Uniquely Detroit on Yagoda and Marvelous Marvin's.)
Under the Radar Michigan wrote about Marvelous Marvin's:
It’s part amusement park, part arcade, part museum and completely insane. It’s an incredible collection of bizarre, classic, vintage, modern and one-of-a-kind arcade games that you can actually play. And every bit of Marvin’s is covered with something weird, fun, rare or just plain silly to look at. You can go there five times and still not see all the crazy stuff Marvin has packed in this place.
Yagoda was featured as an appraiser on the "American Pickers" TV show and the World Almanac named his museum one of the 100 weirdest museums in the world.
Outside of the museum, Yagoda worked as a pharmacist at his father's pharmacy, Sam's Drugs, for 50 years.
Read an interview with Yagoda here.
Here's Yagoda on "American Pickers":