Inheritances can take many forms, but for two Perth sisters, their grandfather’s gift came in the form of tiny model cars – 10,000 of them.
Prominent Perth architect Ralph Drexel once owned the largest collection of model cars in the southern hemisphere.
Entire rooms of his downtown home were devoted to housing his hidden collection, filling every corner with unsorted boxes.
When he died earlier this year, his collection was passed to his granddaughters Sophie and Rosie Bates.
“We don’t know anything about cars, we don’t know anything about model cars, because it was such a hidden passion of his,” Sophie said.
“We didn’t know where to start or what to do.
“We didn’t know it was going to become a full-time job for us.”
In his will, Ralph made the condition that if the sisters sold his collection, the proceeds would go to his great-grandchildren.
To secure their children’s future, Sophie and Rosie put their jobs on hold and decided to sell their toy cars online.
This involves sifting through hundreds of boxes and individually evaluating, photographing and cataloguing each model.
“We knew some of the things he had were really special, so that’s when we thought, you know what, we can do this ourselves,” Rosie said.
The response was overwhelming.
A booming business
They were suddenly inundated with orders.
“We’ll call each other like oh my god, did you see how much that cost?” Sophie said.
“We had a little plastic car in the package. We put it up for sale for $150 and the price kept going up and up and up until it sold to a man in Florida for $1,900.”
As avid collectors opened their wallets, the sisters opened a door to a new world of model cars and all the characters that lived in them.
The sisters were fascinated by why customers came to them, and many of them kept their new purchases private.
“It’s like their dirty little secret,” Sophie said.
“Most people say, ‘Oh, my wife is going to kill me.’
“It’s surprising how many collectors there are in Perth, each with their own niche.”
From order to chaos
WA Model Collectors Club president Ian Hind collects models of the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France.
“I’ve been a car enthusiast my whole life… there are no two collectors in the club who collect exactly the same thing,” he said.
“Model cars have been around since the 1930s, which is almost 100 years of history, and within that you have all kinds of brands, all kinds of scales, all kinds of prices, from $2 to $200.”
Its immaculate display cases of carefully arranged models are a stark contrast to Ralph’s chaos of stacked boxes.
No matter how people sort their collection, inheriting these little cars can be a heavy burden.
“One thing I constantly stress to our club members is that they must make arrangements to dispose of their collection before they die,” Hind said.
“I get phone calls all the time from deceased estate families who have inherited collections, they have no idea what it’s worth, they don’t know where to sell it, or how to get started.
“All the credit goes to Rosie and Sophie because I think what they did, [for people] who knew very little about this hobby, is quite astonishing.”
After being surrounded day after day by hordes of model cars, Sophie and Rosie found a surprising joy in the work.
“Even though cars themselves aren’t necessarily our passion, I think it’s really cool and I’m really proud that we worked hard and didn’t just ship it,” Rosie said.
“I think Ralph would really like to see us work so well together and would be really happy with how we sell them and how we achieve what we can.”
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