Two unmarried brothers are seeking an heir to take over their cuckoo clock collection—the largest one in the world.
For five decades, Roman and Maz Piekarski have collected 750 intricate pendulum-driven clocks to display in their ‘Cuckooland’ museum.
But as time ticks down on their careers, the siblings who have no children are now desperate to find someone to take on the metronomic menagerie before their deaths, according to Southwest News Service.
“I’m 71 and Maz is 69, and we have not got anybody to leave it to,” explained Roman.
“It would be wonderful if we could get someone to take it on. It really would be.”
They became fascinated with clocks as teens and went into the trade as apprentices after leaving school at 15.
The brothers from England traveled all around the world hunting down unique timepieces while trying to beat rival collectors from the U.S. and Germany.
But after amassing the world’s largest collection for their museum outside of Cheshire (see video below), they now have no sons or daughters to leave it to.
“For the last four years, I have been making small inquiries as to finding somebody who could take it over,” says Roman. “But I’ve not found a single person who could come in and run it.
“We are looking for a body to take Cuckooland on, hopefully keep it together for all time. We’ve still got the time to teach people—and we don’t care where we have to go to do it—so they’ll know how to maintain, look after, give guided tours, whatever is necessary.”
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They caught the bug for European cuckoo clocks after learning that they all came from a 25-mile patch of the Black Forest in Germany.
Their finest pieces include one made for Frederick I, the Grand Duke of Barden in the 1860s, and another was brought aboard a Lancaster bomber in World War II.
The rarest clocks can take years to acquire, and whenever the pair hears a whisper that there might be an antique clock coming to market, they are ready to travel and get in ‘the hunt’.
“If it’s a special clock that’s come up for sale, I would do the deal and then get the next flight out of Manchester to the nearest airport to where the people live and then locate it and pay for it and then fly back – all in the same day. And now we have got some very, very rare pieces.”
At a fair in the Black Forest, for instance, he laid eyes on a hotly desired 1860s hand-built clock that he’d been chasing for two years—and quickly snapped it up.
“How I’d found it before everyone else? We have a saying in England: ‘First up, best dressed’.”
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Roman said he’d approached various people about taking on the collection but had not received any offers, despite mostly rave reviews from visitors and specialists.
“The British museum got in touch with us, and they said ‘If we could lift your place and put it in our place, that would be the best thing we could do.
“I’ve got it in me to teach someone how to do the guided tours and about the clocks and the different stories—and my brother’s got time to teach someone about doing the movements.
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“When people leave our museum, they are absolutely gobsmacked. People just can’t believe what we’ve managed to put together.”
Their website has been abandoned, but if you are interested in a new career or to inquire further, contact them by phone (+44 1565 633039) or visit them on Chester Road in Tabley, Cheshire.
Get a look at the museum in the video below…
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