It’s Gallery Night in Coral Gables, and the Gallery of Transportation is crowded with men looking at scale models of locomotives, cars and ships.
Their wives or girlfriends are outside near the door, “hoping the men won’t buy anything,” said gallery owner Bill Box.
And there’s reason to worry. Prices of the locomotives start at $3,000 and go up to $30,000. These limited-edition, handmade “Gauge One” models are not for kids. Some have more than 2,500 pieces and take hundreds of hours to produce.
“This is Old World craftsmanship, the finest models you can buy,” said Bob Derry, Box’s partner.
Box, 49, and Derry, 63, are an engineer and a chemist, respectively, who retired early to indulge their love of trains. Both had toy trains in childhood, but it is Box who is the serious train buff.
He has 50 locomotives in his collection and is building an addition to his home to display them. Derry has 10 flyable model airplanes.
The train models are crafted in 1/32nd scale in Germany, Italy and the U.S. by Lemaco, Lombardi, Bockholt & Sohne and others.
They are made of brass, nickel silver, steel and teak and are replicas of actual trains, such as the French line Compagnie Internationale des Wagon Lits et des Grandes Express Europeens.
The gallery also offers a “Big Boy” Union Pacific brass model by Aster Models for $16,000, a model of a historic “G-12” Baden State Railway by Markscheffel & Lennartz and a Pennsylvania Railroad workhorse called an “M-la” made by Fine Art Models.
All are electric except a 30-year-old steam model that can be powered with a combination of alcohol and water. The partners haven’t tried it because “it would lose value if used,” said Derry.
The models are displayed in Plexiglass boxes, but Derry or Box will open them so visitors can get a closer look.
One that requires scrutiny is a 30-inch-long teak replica ($11,500) of a 1904 dining car from the Orient Express, one of 15 made by Italian craftsman Renzo Dottori. The roof comes off the car so one can see the Oriental rug, the tiny bottles of champagne and menus on the tables, and the Lilliputian travelers waiting to be served by liveried waiters.
While trains are the main offering, the Gallery of Transportation also shows models of ships, cars and a single airplane.
Models include a rare live steam tugboat, “Perserverance,” by Aster Models, $6,500.
A model of the Georges Leygues, a World War II French cruiser, can be bought for $12,000.
For race car aficionados, a bright red Maserati 250F ($25,000) features a seat upholstered in gray corduroy.
A model of a 1941 U.S. Army jeep has the maintenance schedule under the hood, a dipstick, adjustable seats and a price tag of $3,700.
Model Motorcars Ltd., a Longwood, Fla., company that produces classic cars from Pocher kits, has several of its models on display at the gallery. Each car has as many as 3,500 pieces, including 150 in a single wire wheel, which explains the price of $6,000 or more.
The gallery has just one airplane model “because they take up too much space.” Hanging from the ceiling is a copy of the Handley Paige 0400, a bomber dating from about 1916.
“But a splendid plane is coming to us,” Box said. “It’s a model used to test the camera angles in the Indiana Jones films.”
Box and Derry say there are two kinds of collectors who buy these models–the serious type, who continues to add to his collection, and the person who wants one piece to display in his office or at home.
“He may buy just one model in his whole life,” Box said.
He said the gallery doesn’t make a sale every day. “We sell in waves. One man bought five locomotives at once. Sometimes we sell to someone we don’t know because clients may have an agent buy for them. These collectors are very quiet.”
And very rich.
“We know one collector who has 70 locomotives averaging $15,000 each,” Box said. “You do a little math and you’ll see he has $1 million tied up in them.”
Most collectors are men. “Women aren’t usually interested in models,” Box said.
“This is a guy place,” Derry said of the gallery, “but it’s one guy thing women can do without smoking cigars.”
“People tend to think we are a travel agency or a museum; they ask if they have to pay to come in,” Box said. “They don’t buy on the first visit, but we have gotten return business from South American tourists.”
The locals who drop in include architects who appreciate the detailed work in the models.
“Most people think our prices are crazy, but the architects can’t understand how such work can be done for the price,” Derry said.
Box and Derry have traveled all over the world in their quest for the finest transportation models. Twice a year, they go shopping at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in Germany.
The modelmakers may be individuals who turn out just two or three models a year, or cottage industries with a family, relatives and neighbors producing perhaps 30 models a year.
“Successful modelmakers make a decent living, but not a great living,” Derry said.
As for the Gallery of Transportation, “If we tried to run it as a business, we would be failures,” Box said.
“We went at it knowing we didn’t have to sell,” said Derry, who retired after 35 years as a production manager for a company that made instruments for laboratories and hospitals.
Derry hired Box when Box left Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1970s. After several years, Box left to start his own company, Symbiosis Corp., with three engineer friends. He designed and made surgical instruments for five years, then sold the company for $175 million, which he shared in varying amounts with 60 employees.
Through the years, Box and Derry kept in touch. They retired about the same time but didn’t want to be idle.
In January 1995, they bought a 2,000-square-foot building, designed the gallery, built the display cases and installed the lighting. The gallery opened in December.
“This gallery is a tribute to a fear of retirement,” Derry said. “I need a routine.”
“Besides, our wives force us to be out of the house at least half of each day,” Box said.
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The Gallery of Transportation is at 165 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables, Fla. Hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Call 305-529-8599. For a brochure, send your mailing address via fax to 305-529-8577.
