A time to collect and a time to let go

Phil Barnett’s 18-year passion for antique toys and other gems

About 18 years ago Phil Barnett began collecting antique toys and other high-end treasures. From a spectacular 29-inch toy scull with synchronized rowers, to a firing-cannon walking stick and an immortalized German race car, he put together a collection that is extraordinary, defined by its quality and diversity.

And that collection is now up for sale on Nov. 8th at Miller & Miller’s Toys auction and Nov. 9th at their Canadiana, Toys & Historic Objects sale.

Barnett is a semi-retired construction contractor who lives outside Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. He’s had an interest in antiques his entire life. As a kid he would dig up old bottles and sell them for candy money. But the exceptional collection he amassed these past 18 years was borne out of tragedy. He and his wife lost their 18-year-old daughter Jessica 18 years ago to something called Long QT Syndrome, an arrhythmia which led to her sudden and unforeseen cardiac arrest.

“That never leaves you,” he confides, explaining that the decision to sell his collection came from the realization that his daughter has now been gone longer than the length of time it’s taken him to put the collection together. For that reason he decided it was time to let the collection go and move on to something else. “The journey of building it – not owning it – was the fun part,” he says. It also became a consuming passion at a time of profound loss, a way to focus and a welcome distraction from omnipotent grief.

Most of what Barnett bought came from within Canada, but sometimes from the U.S. The toy that started it all was a TM (Toy Nomura Company) & Showa mechanized robot in its original box (Lot 211), a piece he likes to call his Robby Robot, a figure modelled after the character in the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet.

This TN (Toy Nomura Co.) & Showa Mechanized Robot with Original Box is offered as lot 211 in the November 9th sale.

While antique toys can be emotional links to times gone by, it’s not an entirely nostalgia-driven market. As the Journal of Antiques and Collectibles pointed out in 2023, “the market for collectible, vintage and antique toys is sophisticated, lucrative, in demand, and a lot of fun.” To serious collectors, they are works of art.

As for Barnett, he’s always collected with two things in mind: “I always buy what I like and I like quality.” That would include his Gunthermann Weigel Coupe Gordon Bennet No. 5 race car, a highly-coveted toy made by one of the best manufacturers in the world and with historical links to the first international car races. (Lot 513). He bought it years ago from the personal collection of a Canadian auctioneer, who he says has since regretted selling it. “It’s the holy grail of tin toy race cars, but I had no idea back then. I just liked the look of it and I wanted it,” says Barnett, adding that toys of this calibre weren’t everyday items for most children around the turn of the century. “You had to be very wealthy to get something like this at Christmas.”

The Gunthermann Weigel Coupè Gordon Bennet No. 5 Race Car is offered as lot 513.

Other interesting pieces in his collection include a rare Saalheimer & Strauss delivery cart (Lot 114), an 1850s Stevens bicycle gun pocket rifle (Lot 263), a walking stick concealing a hidden flask with its original glass tube and cork (Lot 448), and two Japanese-made Edsel toy cars replicating models from the doomed Ford auto experiment in the late 1950s (Lots 91, 92).

“But these things aren’t just about values,” he emphasizes. “It’s the stories behind them and where they came from.”

Not surprisingly, Barnett is a man full of stories himself.

He recalls a time buying antiques from a guy in the Maritimes and there was a painting by renowned Nova Scotia folk artist Maud Lewis on the wall, owned by the guy’s elderly mother. Barnett offered her a good price for it, but she said she wasn’t ready to sell, not until she was in a nursing home. When that time came and he returned to buy the painting, she mentioned there were lots more Maud Lewis’s at her husband’s hunting cabin. So off they went to check it out. He recalls there were between 11 and 15 paintings – every one of them with bullet holes. Seems the husband was not a fan and had been using them for target practice. “I could have bought them all for $1,000, but I thought they were probably worthless.” After Barnett left, he reconsidered and thought he might buy them after all. But it was too late. Some kids had since broken into the cabin and it had burned to the ground with the paintings inside. “The bullet holes were the story and would have been what sold them,” he laments.

Then there was the time his late father, who was an importer of Waterman pens, was moving to British Columbia and clearing out his house in Ontario. He filled a 24-foot cube van with assorted unwanted items and a whole lot of pens, which at the time weren’t worth much. He took everything to the local dump. Watermans are now considered by many to be the gold standard for pens and some can command serious money, something his father never foresaw.

Barnett first met Justin and Ethan Miller, owners of Miller & Miller Auctions, about five years ago at an antique show just outside Toronto. “I’ve watched them grow and progress and I’ve been impressed,” he says. “That’s the main reason I’m selling through them.”

So even though it’s time to let go of the collection he built these past 18 years, Barnett is certainly not done collecting. He’s just changing directions. He’s become a big fan of Haida Nation artifacts and marine history. In fact he just recently bought 800 wooden buoys. “The wooden ones are hard to come by now,” he points out. “They’re working folk art, really.”

It’s what he calls his “instant collection”.