In Memoriam: Mechanical bank and toy expert Donal Markey

Donal Markey (left) with friends Dick Ford (center) and Rich Bertoia (right) at Bertoia Auctions’ March 19, 2009 preview preceding the sale of the Donald Kaufman Collection, Part I. Photo copyright Catherine Saunders-Watson.

LITITZ, Pa. (ACNI) – Auction Central News has learned that Donal Markey, an influential dealer and collector of antique mechanical and still banks, and cast-iron toys, died this morning, March 22, 2010, after a brief illness.

A widely acknowledged expert on mechanical banks, Donal’s long list of illustrious clients over the past 25 years included Mosler Safe Co. president/CEO Edwin H. Mosler Jr., renowned collector Stan Sax, and Leon Perelman, founder of the Perelman Museum in Philadelphia.

Donal was as a contributing consultant to Bill Norman’s ground-breaking reference The Bank Book: The Encyclopedia of Mechanical Bank Collecting, published in 1984. At the time of his death, he served as an expert consultant to Bertoia Auctions. Donal was a member of the Mechanical Bank Collectors of America, the Antique Toy Collectors of America, and the Still Bank Collectors Club of America.

Together with New York art dealer Alex Acevedo and close friend Bill Bertoia [co-founder of Bertoia Auctions, who died in 2003], Don Markey rewrote antique-toy-collecting history as one-third of the triumvirate that produced the landmark 1988 tag sale of contents of the Perelman Museum. The sale initiated what would become known in antique toy annals as “the Great Grab.”

The Sept. 16, 1988 Perelman Museum tag sale was a revolutionary concept. It required those taking part in the first-come, first-served event to pay a $50,000 entry fee to be applied as a deposit toward guaranteed purchases. The selection of 700 premier toys and banks from the Perelman collection grossed $3.6 million on that day, and many of the toys and banks purchased helped to establish the foundations of famous collections to follow. On Oct. 9, 1988, a sale of 700 additional toys from the museum took place. The event was open to the public, with no entry fee required, and grossed approximately $1.8 million.

With the same business partners, Markey scored yet again a mere five days later with the private-treaty sale of the fabled Hegarty collection of mechanical banks. Price tag: $3.24 million. Capping off the Great Grab series, a fourth deal, which made a clean sweep of all remaining Perelman Museum toys, brought the four-event grand total to $9 million. The Great Grab, and the novel way in which its component parts were staged, remains a highlight in toy-collecting history that is still widely talked about to this day.

There can be no question that Don Markey recognized the future unfolding before his eyes as he and his partners crafted the series of legendary sales. “We all wanted to take advantage of a great opportunity to raise the bar for future collectors,” he told Auction Central News editor-in-chief Catherine Saunders-Watson in a June 2009 interview. “We wanted toys to be regarded as works of art.”

Don Markey’s many friends are invited to attend a Life Celebration Memorial Service in his honor on March 29, 2010 at 10:30 a.m., at the funeral home of Fred F. Groff Inc., 234 W. Orange St., Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The family will receive friends at the funeral home during the hour prior to the service. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Hospice of Lancaster County, 685 Good Drive, P.O. Box 4125, Lancaster, PA 17604-4125.

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