Noel Barrett to offer part one of the Ward Kimball Train & Toy Collection, Nov. 19-20 – Bid live online!
Aug. 26, 2004
PHILADELPHIA - On Nov. 19 and 20, Noel Barrett Antiques & Auctions, Ltd. will sell part one of the lifetime toy and train collection of legendary Disney animator Ward Kimball.
A spectacular and unique collection known to enthusiasts throughout the world, the Kimball trains and toys are unmatched in their synergy of quality, quantity and diversity – so much so that it will take two separate events of approximately 800 lots each to auction them all. (The sequel will be held over Memorial Day weekend, May 27-28, 2005.)
To understand the motivation behind Kimball’s interest in collecting trains and toys, one needs look no further than the career path chosen by the man himself. Whether you were born a decade ago or a century ago, your life has been enriched by the unrestrained creative genius of Ward Kimball. One of the inner circle of revered Disney animators known as the “nine old men,” Kimball spent his life immersed in a world of multifaceted amusement. Remember the Firehouse Five Plus Two, the Dixieland jazz band on TV’s original Mickey Mouse Club? That was Ward Kimball on slide trombone.
Active in the Disney organization from 1934 until his passing in 2002, Kimball spent 39 of those years as the animator, or directing animator, of such Disney classics as Fantasia, Snow Whiteand the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio and Peter Pan. Other Kimball credits include Cinderella, Mary Poppins and The Three Caballeros.
He was the inventor of Pinocchio’s “conscience,” Jiminy Cricket. He also was the artist whose pen changed Mickey Mouse from a ratty, pointy-nosed rodent to a friendlier-looking, more plump-faced character. Among the many accolades he received during his life were two Academy Awards, for the Disney shorts Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953), and It’s Tough to Be a Bird (1969). This was a man who knew how to blur the lines between work and fun.
The tribute to Kimball appearing in the New York Times immediately after his death in July 2002 included a quote from a 1978 interview with the artist. He said of his early days with Disney: “We thought we were always going to be 21 years old. We thought we would always be putting goldfish in the bottled drinking water, balancing cups of water on the light fixtures, changing the labels on cans of sauerkraut juice. We were 21 years old. Walt (Disney) was 30, leading the pack. Working there was more fun than any job I could ever imagine.”
Off duty, Kimball’s greatest passion was trains, and from day one, there was always room for blue-ribbon European brands. “He began buying European trains when a lot of American collectors weren’t paying much attention to them,” Barrett said. “As a result, he was able to amass an amazing collection when rare European trains were still available.”
When it came to trains, however, Kimball left his options wide open, choosing not to narrow his buying focus. “It’s an extremely broad collection. A lot of collectors will buy only standard gauge, 0 gauge, cast-iron or early track trains. Ward collected it all. His collection was like an encyclopedia, the way it was arranged. To visit his collection was to see the story of toy trains in America. On his property in San Gabriel, California, he had one big building divided into two rooms, each filled with layouts of American and European trains. And the walls were covered with trains, too – all arranged in a very organized way. It was staggering to behold.”
In one of the rooms of his “train shed,” Kimball housed his Marklins, Carettes, Bings, Issmayers and other Continental and British makes; in the other, he kept his prized American trains, from manufacturers like George Brown, Voltamp, Lionel and American Flyer. In addition to trains, Kimball acquired rare Marklin stations, glass-domed platforms and wonderful railway accessories. “Being an artist, he had a great eye, which is reflected in the choices he made as a collector.”
Not only did Kimball revel in watching his trains speed down straightaways and veer around hairpin curves, he also took pleasure in engineering his own life-size, fully functional live steam locomotive in his back yard, a three-acre lemon grove. “He would fire it up and drive the short distance from his train shed to a replica Victorian train station that was used in Disney’s (1949) film So Dear to My Heart,” said Barrett. “Then he’d go into the shed and run his trains.”
In addition to railwayana, Kimball also collected antique and vintage toys – anything from delicately scaled bell toys to oversized nautical vessels, like Marklin’s hefty 39in live steam battleship Boston. “As a founding member of the Train Collectors of America, Ward was well known for his trains, and admittedly they were his real love, but he also had a very large toy collection and was a 35-year member of the ATCA. He liked many types of toys – cast iron, tin, paper litho on wood, comic character – one category led him to another.”
Kimball’s passion for trains and toys often was shared in the form of feature articles appearing in books, periodicals and TCA quarterlies. He also was known as a gracious host who delighted in showing his toys to visitors from within the collecting community. “His door was always open to anyone who found their way out to the L.A. area. He was so generous. The end result was that it became one of the best-known collections in America.”
The camaraderie Kimball enjoyed with his fellow collectors is the reason his family resisted offers to privately sell the multimillion-dollar collection as a whole, Barrett said. “Ward had always said he wanted it all to go back to the collectors, and that he only wished he could see their faces when they had a chance to buy these things. There are so many rare items, and it’s such a famous collection, we expect a much larger crowd than can be accommodated at the Lambertville gallery. That’s why we’re holding the sales at the Philadelphia International Airport, where it will be easy for people to fly in from anywhere.”
The November auction will feature classic period American Flyer and Lionel trains, as well as toys, Disneyana and some of Kimball’s early American tin, cast-iron and early track trains (e.g., Voltamp, Howard, Carlisle & Finch). More of the same will appear in the May auction, together with all of Kimball’s Ives 0 gauge and standard gauge trains.
Barrett noted that a bonus sure to be appreciated by bidders is that no sales tax will apply to purchases made at the Kimball auction. “There’s no sales tax on single-owner estate sales in Pennsylvania.”
All lots in this extraordinary sale can be bid on live via the Internet from anywhere in the world, through LiveAuctioneers.com. Two to three weeks prior to the sale, the fully illustrated auction catalog will be available to view on the LiveAuctioneers website: www.liveauctioneers.com.
The auction will begin at 6 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, Nov. 19 and 10 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday, Nov. 20.
