Old toy ship sells for record $264,000

An antique toy dealer says that the sale is the equivalent to buying a Picasso in the 1970s. Photo / Supplied

NEW YORK - A 95cm-long replica of the ill-fated Lusitania owned by the late Malcolm Forbes and his sons sold for US$194,500 ($264,266) at Sotheby's , setting a record for a toy boat at auction.

The publishing magnate bought it in 1983 for US$28,600. The actual Cunard ocean liner was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915.

Overall, the sale's 237 lots, which included toy knights and the earliest surviving Monopoly game, handmade by its inventor Charles Darrow, failed to stir as much excitement as expected. While the room was packed with dealers and collectors, they seemed more interested in less-expensive lots.

A doll lighthouse with a presale range of US$10,000 to US$15,000 went for US$17,500.

A 19th-century toy gunboat made in Germany in the 1880s fetched US$134,500, failing to reach its low estimate of US$150,000.

The largest boat in the Forbes collection, the 119cm-long French battleship "Andre" was expected to go for as much as US$300,000. It failed to sell.

More fortunate was a German-made 1905 vessel known as the Plank "King Edward VII" Clockwork Battleship, which sold for US$68,500, above the top estimate of US$45,000.

It was bought for a client by Stuart Waldman, a New York-based antique-toy dealer, who said he sold it to a Forbes representative for US$2250 about 30 years ago.

"This stuff is starting to be recognised but it's nothing compared to what it's going to be in 10 years," Waldman said.

"This is the equivalent to buying Picasso in the 1970s."

The Monopoly set, one of the last lots, fetched US$146,500 - above its high estimate of US$80,000.

Sotheby's had estimated total sales of between US$3 million and US$5 million. The actual figure was US$2.4 million.

The items were sold by Forbes Media, the company that publishes Forbes magazine.

Part of the Forbes toy collection was auctioned in 1994.

The company has cut staff in recent years because of a decline in advertising.

It sold its Greenwich Village headquarters to New York University last January.

- Bloomberg