World’s largest toy collection up for sale at Sotheby’s

An unique collection is going on sale: 35,000 vintage toys and trains assembled over a period of 50 years by an American collector.

Jerry Greene kept this astonishing collection in five basement rooms of his suburban Philadelphia home, and now Sotheby’s auction house in New York  has its entire floor filled by only 5000 pieces.

The collector hopes to find buyer who will acquire the whole of it. Known as the Jerni Collection, it is considered the largest and most comprehensive toy collection in the world, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, said Sotheby’s, which is brokering the sale for Greene. It will not be auctioned.

All the toys date from 1850 to 1940 and represent some of the best European and American makers of golden age toy manufacturing, including Marklin, Bing, Ernst Plant Carette, and Rock & Graner. There are replicas of actual train stations, bridges and buildings destroyed during both world wars. There are also villages, carousels and Ferris wheels.”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” in the United States, Greene said in a statement.

Sotheby’s revealed that Greene hopes the collection to be bought by an institution or individual who will then donate it to a museum .

The name Jerni combines the first names of the owner and his wife, Nina, Sotheby’s said