Jerni Collection, World's Largest?

Photos from Sotheby's.

 

 

 

 

 

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I am totally confused!  The last mention of this collection was to the effect it was going back to Germany to be auctioned in 2 successive auctions.

You are right sir, the auction was going to be made by a german auctionneer but has been canceled.

 

Maybe for several reasons, importation of a such large collection from USA is submitted to custom dues, must be around 20 % of the declared value so it makes a huge amount to pay.

 

I also heard about that collection, from two well known european train sellers, one in France and the other one in Germany that, as this collection is so large and impressive that the market prices for high grade pieces could tend to go too much low in regard to comon prices here. Too many pieces at the same time for not so many collectors who can afford this kind of high quality pieces.

 

But as you say in USA, that's just my two cents....

 

Very best,

 

Daniel

 

FRANCE

I saw this collection at Sothbies as well as last time it was at the NY Historical Society. I do not believe the whole collection will be on display because it wasn't last time. Also the press release claims that "selections of the collection" will be on display.

 

It is an amazing collection and I would love to have a book on it.

The Jerni Collection has been acquired by the New York Historical Society:

 

"Holiday Express: Toys and Trains from the Jerni Collection

Wow! That really great news on the collection acquisition. I hope it stays secure and is open to access by the public and research. i wounded if it was a partial or a complete collection donation. Either way that's great news.

The New York Historical Society operates the oldest museum in the city of New York.

It is very well funded and would have no problem finding the money to acquire this collection.  This is an organization with very deep pockets.

 

The New York Historical Society website states that it is now the owner of the Jerni Collection, which I think is very good news.  It will be available to be viewed by the public in the museum and accessed by researchers interested in its historical and cultural contexts.

Visited the Jerni Collection today at the New York Historical Society Museum.  Pictures attached: Very Impressive and this is only some of the collection. I helped the electricians with understanding DCS.  They have setup 4 separate suspended tracks and are running LIONEL/MTH tinplate steam engines they got from Train World. This visit is a must see and will be on my list of things to do for my annual Thanksgiving trip to my daughters in NYC. I spoke with the VP of operations for the museum, Andrew Buonpastore, and he said they will be adding to the display every year.

 

RE: The Jerni Collection - world's largest:

 

NO DOUBT - and you are in rarified air, so to speak, when observing these very exquisite, rare and mostly European models meticulously collected when the "gitten was good!"

Thanks for sharing pics.

 

But color me unimpressed. Very poor display arrangement, especially compared to the Sotheby's exhibit.

 

Most of the buildings in the first pic are quite common American made pieces. Lionel station, Bilt E-Z buildings, Lionel bungalo with painted roof... Yawn! Nothing rare or unique there. That factory/power plant building is neat. But the skyscraper is a very common 1950's Marx toy. Not a very impressive grouping if indeed they had the entire Jerni Collection to draw from. That Lionel factory in the front corner is modern, and doesn't hold a candle to the fantastic early buildings that were on display at Sothebys. To have that front and center is just embarrassing! Seriously, compare the display in the first pic provided by PRR Joe to any of the scenes in pics posted by Mill City...

 

This makes me wonder if the museum's curitorial staff knows anything about toys and toy trains at all.

 

As for the display in the third pic... While I'm not impressed with the display's design, I must say that case holds a couple of the most coveted toys from the collection; the Boucher Blue Comet and the ultra rare Marklin station marked for PENNSYLVANIA R.R. But again, more common boring Bilt E-Z in the background. ???

 

The NYHS seriously needs some new curators.

 

Thanks again for posting the pics, it saves me the trip to the NYHS. I went to the Sotheby's exhibit three times trying to take it all in... Maybe the NYHS exibit will improve over time, but as is I don't see it being worth the $19 admission.

I thought that this was Jerry Green's collection that was up for sale for $50 million at one point and was featured on TV  and UTube.  Were does "Jerni" come from--a collapse of Jerry Green?

 

Lew Schneider

I finally went last week. Here are some pictures. Apparently the display was planned before the donation according to a docent I talked to. There is no catalog planned either unfortunately. There is some signage with Bloomberg's name on it sponsoring the display for what that is worth. The signage also alludes to the large size of the the collection so it seems to all be together. The show is up through the end of February.

Here are some more.

Thanks for the photos, nice to see the collection being displayed. However, what's with the lavender lighting? It sucks the color out of the pieces. Would one do this to a painting? They should know better.

 

This color may be an artifact of my phone.

The lights were on a color shift timer. In some cases I didn't want to sit around waiting for the color to change to take the picture. My fault sorry.

There were a few theatrical tricks like this throughout the display. Several contemporary repros were running on timers, large monitors had animated videos showing playful animations of the toys as if they were moving in a world kind of like a Homage to Charles and Ray Eames' Tocata for Toy Trains film, recorded sounds of both toy trains moving and real trains were playing, donut shaped turntables with Vintage trains sitting on them rotated in some displays so it appeared that they were moving trains while at the same time not damaging them. I thought it was a nice and playful display that showed movement but did not damage the artifacts.

Here is another picture of the Grand Central Station in the background of that image at a different time in the cycle.

JERNI

Jerry and Nina Greene

Thanks for the photos everyone! Stunning exhibition....

Funny, of all the great stuff here.... the steam-powered roller-coaster (*posted by Silver Lake) is probably my favourite, for its "cute"factor.