Ancient thread, but imma gonna bump it because I think its interesting
The great thing, to me, about Lenos collection is the fact that he can specifically tell you why he has each car, why it was great, and he has taken a wrench to all of them.
The Sultan just has infinite money and just buys them (as mentioned above) like matchbox cars.
Leno is worth a few hundred million. He could take $100M and buy a CRAP HEAP more cars, but thats not the point.
To me, QUANTITY is meaningless... QUALITY is what counts. I think thats a lesson CLEARLY lost on some of the mid and near east collectors who are basically just spending the treasury of their country and buy material goods like candy.
I dont begrudge them (thats up to their people to do, but Brunei is quite nice so Im sure no one has complaints), I just dont think its impressive to say "Ill take 4 of everything ever made" and then say "now HERE is the "Best" collection".
This is kind of true of ANY kind of collecting... The deliberate, knowledgeable, enthusiast approach painstakingly and lovingly built over years vs the sledgehammer approach of taking a bunch of money and just buying out huge lots. I find the former to be a truly remarkable thing. The latter? Eh...