The Leuralla Toy & Rail Museum located at Leura, in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia has closed it’s doors after 40 years.

Overlooking the Jamison Valley, the Toy & Rail Museum contained and showed off the largest collection of toys in the Southern Hemisphere. The Museum is located on 5 hectares of land, and is actually a 20th century historic mansion surrounded by landscaped gardens.

The collection is made up of a vast array of toys collected over the last 100 years from a variety of countries, with an emphasis on the period from 1910 to 1960. It’s regarded as one of the most important in the world and spans the early 1900s to current day.

Toys from Australia, Asia, Europe and the USA are featured, including Teddy Bears, Barbies, Dolls, Train Sets, Led Figures, Games/Puzzles and pre and post WWII toys of historical significates.

This included 1950s toys from Japan for example, such as toy robots, boats, trucks, aero planes and cars. The collection also included toys manufactured by large international toy companies such as Meccano, Dinky-Toy, Triang, Brittain, Lenci, Lehman, Schuco, Steiff and Marx.

The Toy & Rail Museum was also the home of a 5 meter tall figure of the Phantom.

Based on a model found within the toy collection, produced by Sydney artist Peter Kingston, the 5 meter tall figure was commission by owners/directors of the Museum, Leuralla, Clive and Elizabeth Evatt.

It took local craftsman Russell Hunt a year in planning and production works to produce the Phantom figure, going on display in 2018. It still proudly stands in the garden surrounding the Leuralla Toy & Rail Museum, overlooking the Leuralla Amphitheatre.

The vast toy collection is due to be sold off later on this year via auction.

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