Even after the former apprentice and then owner of Sonntag Fox Electrical retired, apprentices and tradesmen used to visit Mr Fox's Balmacewen Rd home to see what their forebears used to work with.
His basement was crammed with many hundreds of vintage appliances, old electrical fittings and curiosities, all boxed, shelved or mounted to outlast any conceivable warranty.
Early washing machines, irons, coal ranges, heaters, wall telephones, meter gauges and radios jostled for space with shock machines, early light fittings, wooden cable holders, lamps, and even a dentist's drill and a Dunedin Fire Service siren.
Ronald A Proctor Auctioneers manager Ricky Proctor said yesterday the collection was considered the holy grail for southern electrical enthusiasts and that many had paid one last visit before it was sold this weekend.
"This is simply an incredible collection. It's just impossible to say how much there is here. Every time I open a new drawer in his cabinets we find more stuff in absolutely great condition. It's something I doubt we'll see again."
Daughter Barbara Key said Mr Fox's family inherited the museum when he died in 1994.
It was later stored at Sonntag Fox until the company was sold and the family reluctantly decided to send the collection to auction.
"It just grew in his latter years, when former staff who knew he had a museum brought him things that would have just been thrown out. It was well-known, and he would have loved to have made it into a real museum," she said.
Mr Proctor said a Dunedin collector wanted to do just that, until he saw what he was dealing with yesterday afternoon.
"He did not want the collection of irons, toasters, jugs, and heaters to get split up, but he underestimated just how much there is. He just wouldn't have the room . . . it's hard to see how Bert did it."
