A New Day Auctions, LLC will present at auction The Loren & Shirley Stier Toy Collection. There will be a series of 8 timed online only auctions on the first Thursday of every month through the end of 2026, with the first on Thursday, May 7th, 2026 at 5pm cst. Auction dates are 5/7, 6/4, 7/2, 8/6, 9/3, 10/1, 11/5, and 12/3 – Bidding links are on upcoming auction page.
This fabulous lifetime collection has over 25,000 toys. Each auction will have a theme to include pressed steel vehicles, construction vehicles, tractors, fire vehicles and toys, diecast and more. Each auction is a timed online only auction with synchronized bidding on 3 platforms including bid.ANewDayAuctions.com, Proxibid.com, and LiveAuctioneers.com. Catalogs will be posted 2 weeks prior to each auction for bidding, and at that time items in that auction will be available for preview at A New Day Auctions, 1149 4th St S, Cannon Falls, MN 55009.
Prior to packing and moving the collection we took videos and photos.
Photos- click here and Videos- click here
Christmas morning 1939 a seven-year-old Loren Stier opened gifts and received a 1/16-scale Arcade cast iron McCormick-Deering 10-20 tractor and Arcade threshing machine. A collection began. The next year he received a pair of 1/16-scale Vindex cast iron black horses and
1/16-scale Vindex grain wagon. He used to say he began farming in miniature when he was a boy.
Loren married Shirley in 1953 and made their home in Belle Plaine, Minnesota where Loren bought a milk route and they raised their children. In 1967 Loren and Shirley bought the school bus business from Loren’s father Otto, and from then on, they managed “Stier Bus and Truck Company.” Eventually they sold the business, but Loren continued driving bus, and then a van, for many years.
While having downtime on a bus trip, Loren bought three tractors from a hardware store that was going out of business in Le Center, Minnesota. The next day he went back and bought three more. He learned to enjoy the hunt, going to implement dealers and stores He and Shirley began to travel, and loved going to toy shows together growing their collection. Loren also had friends and family on the lookout for new pieces. They loved meeting new people and often traded duplicates for items they did not have.
The collection grew and when the bus business moved, they had a large empty building they turned into a private museum to display his collection. This museum was named one of the three best private collector museums in the Midwest by Bill Vossler in his 1998 book “Toy Farm Tractors”. He knew his collection like the back of his hand, and could find a specific toy right away in his two-level museum of over 25,000 toys.
Very few are exactly alike, it may look like one next to it, but Loren could show you all the differences – a stick shift on this one and an automatic transmission on the next; one with a rounded fender, the other squared. The small differences are what Loren looked for to have in his collection. The upstairs has alcoves with thousands of tractors including John Deere, Farmall, Case, International Harvester, Minneapolis-Moline, Oliver, Ford, and others by Eska, ERTL, Spec-Cast, Tonka, Arcade, Hubley and others.
There are many scratch-built pieces including Minneapolis-Moline tractors by Gilbert Berg. Other pieces by Gilson Riecke, Pete Freiheit, and Steve Schulz. A set of John Deere tractors receives special attention. These look like all the other green steel John Deeres that factories turn out by the thousands. But looks can be deceiving. This set is handmade out of wood by Marvin Kruse of Nebraska. There is no other set like it.
The collection includes several handmade working pieces of 1/8 machinery- steam engines, threshing machines, elevators and balers. There are also seven 1/16 scale farm scenes depicting 1920-1980’s farm life. Several alcoves display a horse and wagon collection including several circus wagons. Many are cast iron, including Kenton and Kilgore, some custom built, and many have handmade harnesses.
Promo cars, antique cars, and diecast models lead to the many alcoves of fire toys in the downstairs. Loren and other family members served as volunteer firemen. Hundreds of fire trucks, ladder trucks, other emergency vehicles, and even horse drawn water wagons line the shelves. Many are cast iron, pressed steel and diecast in assorted sizes.
There are several alcoves of pressed steel vehicles including one area that is all Tonka Toys, including Hi-Way Department vehicles. Other alcoves hold Structo, Smith Miller, MARX, Buddy L, Keystone, Doepke, Nylint and others. Several cases display thousands of smaller scale and miniature size diecast vehicles with every brand imaginable. A room of semi-trucks with advertising includes creameries and bus companies Loren had done business with, and several custom painted M&J Toys semi-trucks.
There are toys from almost every country that make them. Odd letters from the Russian, Japanese, Indian and Czechoslovakian alphabets look out of place at times. A favorite of Loren’s was a set from Germany that was marked “Styer” in the German spelling of the family name. Pedal cars, tricycles, Mack trucks, and even a few garden scale trains complete the collection. Most items are original, and some items have been professionally restored by the likes of Norman Langford and others.