Biggest Toy Collection in World on SALE

The recent arrival into the Sotheby’s sale on February 28, 2011 was the Jerni Collection, which is conceived, as the world’s largest anthology of historically significant toys. Jerni Toy Collection is a compilation of collection of proprietor Jerry Green’s life’s work. With toy collection being one of Greene’s abiding passion, he has been collecting trains and diddles since the age of 18. The Pennsylvania-based music executive, aged 67 today has acquired more than 35,000 vintage toys and trains assembled over 50 years. Some of the prominent features of the Jerni collection include replications of structures, which were destroyed during World War II together with countless hand-crated and antique trains.

One of the special highlight of the collection was Marklin’s biggest and elaborate train station that features double doors in its hub. While individual pieces are priced at several hundred thousand dollars, the entire Jerni Collection’s total worth counts up to eight figures and is available for sale at Sotheby’s New York.

Greene kept the collection interspersed between five separate basement rooms in his home in Philadelphia. He said he wants to sell it all as one collection, possibly to a public institution or a museum.

"I put it together piece by piece, and my quest for the highest-quality trains and toys took me to thousands of toy fairs and shows,” stated Greene.

Click on the picture below to enlarge (really, it's worth it for this just to awe at the scale of this collection which is only a part of the entire thing. 5,000 pieces alone fill the entire floor of Sotheby's auction house in New York and there are 35,000 pieces in all)

Sotheby’s of New York will sell Greene's collection of more than 35,000 toys, made between 1850 and 1940, including rare, handmade and historically significant European pieces (replicas of actual train stations, bridges and buildings destroyed during the two world wars) as well as villages, carousels and Ferris wheels in an upcoming auction.

The BBC reported that the collection is expected to get tens of millions of dollars at the auction.

So guys and gals (fellow collectors), keep on collecting ;) in 50 years time who knows? This could be YOU!

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