Retired engineer Marian Gradus claims to have Britain’s largest collection of model cars. John Evans asks him how it came to be – and why he now wants to sell
PHOTOGRAPHY JOHN BRADSHAW
There’s passion and then there’s obsession. Precisely when someone crosses from one to the other is hard to say, but in the case of Marian Gradus, it was probably when he instructed his wife to stop dusting his collection of model cars. “Dust is part of the ageing process,” he told her.
Unfortunately, when we meet and in my eagerness to hold and admire one of his 5000 models (mostly in 1:43 scale), I accidentally disturb the dust on its roof. Marian needs me to tell his story – the coverage will help him sell the collection, he hopes – so he resists giving me the Mrs Gradus lecture.
The retired automotive and aerospace engineer was born in Poland 75 years ago. He’s selling his models now because, well, 5000 of them is a heck of a responsibility. He could sell them all as a job lot to a collector, but he refuses to do so, because, he says, they would give him a pittance. Instead, he’s laboriously punting them one at a time on eBay. So far, he has shifted 501. “Few people don’t want model cars these days,” he claims.
In the very next breath, Gradus reveals that he has been offered a generous six-figure sum for the lot by a US-based collector. However, he believes they’re worth a lot more: “An auction company has valued them at three times what he’s offering.” Gradus asks me not to reveal the figures, so you will just have to speculate.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve been in the presence of a model car collector. In 2019, for this magazine, I visited the Collectors Old Toy Shop in Halifax to meet its owner, Simon Haley. Crates overflowing with battered Dinky, Matchbox and Corgi cars jostled for space with pristine versions still in their boxes, some pushing £900 each.
Perhaps because he’s Polish and has lived and worked all around the world, Gradus’s collection is dominated by, at least to me, less familiar brands, including Minichamps of Germany and Norev of France. Closer to home, he also has models by Brooklin, a British company based in, of all places, Bath. Made by hand, these command high prices.
Gradus has whet my appetite for his collection by saying it numbers 5000 cars, but when I turn up, only around 2000 of them are on display. “I’ve had thieves breaking in for the collection so have put most of them in storage,” he explains.
Without wishing to give crooks a steer, we start in the dining room, where on one wall are three d
