1929 damaged his fortune; the models were left in storage. After his death, the collection went through a number of ownership changes; a large portion of the collection—along with $1,000,000—was donated to the nonprofit United States Patent Model Foundation by Cliff Peterson. Rather than being put into a museum, these models were slowly sold off by the foundation. Much legal wrangling, purchasing, and re-selling ensued. A comparatively small number of models (4,000) were the property of the Rothschild Patent Museum until 2015, when they were transferred to Hagley Museum and Library, forming a part of the museum's collection of patent models. With over 5,000 models, the Hagley's is the largest private collection, and second in size only to the Smithsonian's. See also United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent drawing 1836 U.S. Patent Office fire 1877 U.S. Patent Office fire References Further reading Hughes, Debra K., Martin W. Kane, and Charles A. Foote. Artifacts of invention: Patent models at the Hagley Museum and Library. York, Pa: York Graphic Services, 1993. Janssen, Barbara Suit. Patent Models Index: Guide to the Collections of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Contributions to History and Technology, no. 54. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2010. (A complete, full-color, 2-volume index of the more than 10,000 original patent models now housed in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.) Rothschild, Alan, and Ann Rothschild. Inventing a Better Mousetrap: 200 Years of American History in the Amazing World of Patent Models. 2015. External links The Rothschild Petersen Patent Model Museum The patent model of Alexander Graham Bell's No. 174,465 invention Patent model windmill c.1860-70 Press release by Hagley Museum and Library Hagley Museum and Library's online database of museum objects Model, patent History of patent law