The Jerni Collection

The Jerni Collection is the largest and most comprehensive collection of magnificent quality European and American toys and trains ever assembled. It is a passionate homage to the Golden Age of toy making, but on a scale that is breathtaking. Tens of thousands of miniature works of art—trains, stations, villages, carousels, Ferris wheels—conjure up a privileged childhood world of beauty, magic and sheer happiness. To see this collection is to be moved beyond words. The more 35,000 objects in The Jerni Collection were assembled piece-by-piece over a 50 year period by a single dedicated collector who is one of the world’s leading authorities on model trains and toys and who placed an emphasis on quality and condition. The pieces date from roughly 1850–1940, and form an encyclopedic collection of toys and trains from every major European and American manufacturer operating during this period including Märklin, Bing, Ernst Plank Carette and Rock & Graner, chronicling the ‘Golden Age’ of European toy manufacturing. It includes hundreds of unique handmade and historically significant European items, including depictions of actual rail stations, bridges and buildings, many of which were destroyed in the First and Second World Wars. The Jerni Collection is the greatest toy and train collection in the world and this is the first time that any portion of it has been shown to the public.