The Stephen Zito Collection of Model Trains Goes Up For Bid at Turner Auctions + Appraisals on September 12

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA, AUGUST 26, 2020 – Turner Auctions + Appraisals is pleased to present The Stephen Zito Collection of Model Trains on Saturday, September 12, 2020, featuring O Gauge trains and accessories from a wide selection of American and international manufacturers. Amassed over 30 years by an avid collector, this online auction offers over 150 lots. American manufacturers include Lionel, MTH, K-Line, Williams, American Flyer, Rail King, Weaver, Pride Lines, Atlas, Thomas Industries, Allstate, Industrial, Dorfan, Sunset Third Rail, Thomas Industries and Marx. Among international makers are Bing, Märklin, ETS, LGB and Hornby. The sale includes a wide range of models, locomotives, passenger coaches, freight cars, tenders, gondolas, cabooses, and Christmas trains. Among the accessories are bridges, control and floodlight towers, goods wagons, a forklift loader, water tower and tank, cattle loader, stations, stockyard, building kits, switches, scale vehicles and more. Greenberg Guides and other reference books complete the sale.

Lot 61, O Gauge MTH 20-3039-1 Hillcrest Lumber Company Climax Locomotive and 20-91028 Hillcrest Lumber Company Caboose; Estimate $400-$500

Born in New York and raised in Arlington County, Virginia, Stephen Zito graduated from Columbia University, majoring in Comparative Literature. “Thereby unemployable,” Stephen says, he went to work 58 hours a week in a copper foundry in Union, New Jersey. Diligently attending New York University nights, weekends and summers, he then earned a master’s degree in Graduate Cinema Studies.

With these credentials, Stephen began a long and successful career in the TV and film industry. He first worked for the American Film Institute as editor of the AFI Catalog of American Film, then as a programmer at the AFI Theater, and as an editor at American Film Magazine. Moving from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles, he joined the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as the founding editor of Emmy Magazine.

Subsequently, his writing career expanded in new creative directions: he started writing movies of the week, wrote The Escape Artist for Francis Ford Coppola, resumed writing movies and miniseries, and worked on a number of TV series as a writer-producer. Before retiring to the San Francisco Bay Area, he worked on JAG, the American legal drama television series with a U.S. Navy theme, for eight years, most of them as one of the co- executive producers. Stephen is currently writing two novels: with no deadline, he says they never seem to get finished, allowing him to spend too much time on eBay.

Stephen’s post-war Lionel childhood led to a lifelong interest in model trains. In fact, he still has the Erie Alco and the Union Pacific Alco his father gave him as a child. There, under the Christmas tree the first year, was a circle of track: a 4’ x 8’ piece of plywood was placed on sawhorses – and a new world unfolded, enhanced with additional model trains on birthdays and Christmases. As is true for many adult collectors, these pleasurable times for Stephen, often spent with his father and older brother, are the key memories of his youth.

As a teenager, he lost interest in model trains when he “discovered girls and cars, in that order” and the trains stayed unopened in boxes for many years. Nevertheless, the boxes went along every time Stephen moved, and in retirement he “made the mistake” of opening them, then started buying trains of all descriptions. A layout ensued (still in progress) and he discovered, or rediscovered, a whole new world of trains.

Lot 3, O Gauge Sunset Third Rail Brass Santa Fe 2-8-0; Estimate $300-$400

Assembled over 30 years, Stephen’s eclectic collection includes a wide array of model trains, sourced from auctions, train meets, and selectively on eBay. While he bought what he liked, he says condition and rarity were always a priority. After a time, he became a collector of collections, purchasing the contents of a storage locker and part or all of three smaller collections from Bay Area collectors. A member of various model train associations such as the Train Collectors of America, he has enjoyed the friendship of other collectors over the years.

For the last 17 years, Stephen and his wife Joanna have lived in the Bay Area. They have two sons, two grandsons, and four rescue cats (“a motley crew, sons and cats both”). All enjoy the pleasures of the kitchen and the garden. He is known to drink wine on special occasions – and he asks, “Aren't most days special?” Stephen says part of his extensive collection is going to auction now “with regret, but time and space are at a premium as life is downsized.”