Hello from New York

[chuck34108]

Hello everyone,

I've taken over my father's collection of cars as they have downsized and oh boy, what a collection!
He collected as we grew up but once all the kids moved out he really went to town so it's been a bit of an overwhelming shock to try and go through what he has. Although he never really had them displayed after we moved out a lot of them are out of the plastic cases and the boxes so right now I'm trying to sort them out.

HIs collection consists of Corgi, Matchbox, Dinky from when he was stationed in UK and we were allowed to play with some of these. Later he collected bigger Corgi, Hot Wheels Solido, Polistil, Rio, Brumm, Models of Yesteryear, Elicor, Mark One. He also seems to have gotten into NASCAR (which is surprising since we were Indy & Formula One men). I haven't even started to go into all the NASCAR.

When I went into the storage room he had a stack of long file boxes (banker boxes). Between those and the plastic totes I'm guessing there were about 30 containers filled with cars. I'm rough estimating that he has about 3000 cars!!
Anyway, I'm hoping to get as much info from this site, the people on here and some ideas of how to deal with this collecton. Some, I think we'll sell, some he wants to keep with him and some us kids don't want to part with.

[[KRAFTIG]]

Hi Chuck, welcome to DS.

[chuck34108]

Hello and thanks!

[Oldtimer]

Welcome. Many here will be glad to help. For me, the first thing I would do is to perform some elementary sorting. There are some common elements that you can look at, including scale (1/64, 1/43, 1/24, 1/18); focus (street - and then stock versus performance versus super car/ or race - and then, as you indicate, what series); or era (say by decade). I am sure some of the guys here can think of more.

My earliest were Dinky, military. They are in storage, and I am so glad I didn't play with them. I have a couple of vintage Corgi, as well.

I simply cannot imagine 3,000 models, though. Personally, I now collect 1/18 scale exclusively, with a focus on racers, in the late 1960's to contemporary era. At that, I also limit to other constraints, but I have close to 600 on display, and maybe another 400-500 in storage.

But 3,000? If they were all 1/18 scale, I believe my wife and I would live in an apartment as the house would be full of models.

Looking forward to helping out if I can.

[chuck34108]

Thanks for the suggestions. Right now I'm trying to re-box some of the loose cars if I can find the right boxes (lol) I'll share some photos as I make some progress.