The Most Unusual Collections that People Have Dedicated their Lives To

45. Knives

A man named Bernardo Mercado from Fremont, California attained the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of knives in the world. He owns a total of 2,175 knives, which is more than the average stock at a knife store. Since this was a brand new reward with no one to compare it to, Bernardo had to spend months preparing his collection to be counted in order to actually get the reward.

44. Airline Sick Bags

A Dutch man named Niek Vermeulen has an odd hobby. He collects airline sick bags. Back in the 1970’s, he started collecting these bags from various airlines. Now, he has over 6,000 sick bags in total. Those bags represent more than 1,000 different airlines from around the world. He also won a Guinness World Record for his collection.

43. Guinness Records Books

Out of everything you could collect to impress the Guinness World Record association, it would be their books. A man named Martin Tovey from Somerset England achieved the Guinness World Record for owning the most Guinness World Record Books. (Say that 5 times fast.) He owns 353 different sets that were printed around the world. His collection started in 1968 when he won a book of world records as a prize at school. He loved them so much, he asked his mother for one every Christmas. Then, as an adult, he began collecting the special and foreign editions. 

42. Nail Clippings in a Jar

Since 1978, Richard Gibson has been collecting his toenails in a jar. He was so proud of this collection that he even displayed it on a shelf in his house to see. His wife has to convince him to put it away when there are guests coming over. Rather than contacting Guinness, he decided he would rather be printed in one of the Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Books instead. He is not sure of how many toenails he has in the jar, but one would guess it would be at least a thousand or more.

41. Royal Memorabilia

A woman named Margaret Tyler owns one of the largest collections of royal memorabilia in the entire world. The collection takes over the entire house, including the “Jubilee Room”, which is dedicated to the Queen and all of her anniversary items. There is also an entire room just for Princess Diana. As you can imagine, everyone in Margaret’s family gives her royal-related gifts for Christmas and Birthdays.

40. Every Single From UK Charts

A Londoner named Keith Sivyer collected every single that was on the UK charts, from ABBA to ZZ Top. The collection totaled more than 45,000 records. Every single week, he would get a copy of the newest singles to enter the Top 40, and buy those albums at the record store. He did this since 1952 until he died at 75 years old. When he passed away, the collection was auctioned off for just a few thousand dollars.

39. Gnomes

One man named Ron Broomfield has assembled the world’s largest collection of garden gnomes. He owns 1,800 gnomes, but the second place person has nearly just as many, so they’re actually neck-and-neck when it comes to winning anything like a Guinness World Record. When Ron passed away in 2015, his gnome collection was auctioned off for charity. If you would like to see a video about Ron Broomfield and his gnomes, click here.

38. Love Dolls

Bob Gibbins and his wife Lizzie both collect dolls. But they have more than the typical doll collection that you might imagine. They like to collect life-sized love dolls- some of which cost thousands of dollars. One of their dolls, “Jessica”, cost $11,202. They estimate that they have spent close to $160,000 on their collection. The Gibbins spend a lot of time taking care of the dolls, and they even take them out in public sometimes. Bob claims that he has never used any of the dolls for their intended purpose, even though he finds many of them to be very attractive. He runs an online forum for other love doll enthusiasts around the world.

37. Vacuum Cleaners

Since he was 3 years old, Steve Cook has been collecting vacuum cleaners. Now, at 38 years old, he owns the biggest collection of vacuum cleaners in the world, and he crammed many of  them into a one-bedroom apartment in the UK. He also rents out a garage and storage unit to house the rest of his collection. Out of his 300-plus machines, his favorite is the Hoover Concept One. Even though he is paying a lot for his storage space, he refuses to stop collecting, and is looking for many of his “holy grail” vacuums that are incredibly rare.

36. Tin Boxes

A Belgian woman named Yvette Dardenne has collected over 60,000 vintage tin boxes, making it the biggest collection in the world. She spent over 30 years accumulating this collection. A lot of her boxes are from around the world. However, Yvette never left her home country. People knew about her collection, and would bring her back boxes as a gift. The collection is so big, it needed to be stored in four houses. We’re not sure whose houses they are, but the idea is mind-boggling.

35. Film Projectors

Christos Psathas from Athens, Greece owns the largest collection of film projectors in the world. He owns a whopping 1,919 projectors that he has collected in a private museum. There are so many of them, that he has to rent two different locations to house them all. Film projectors vary in cost, with modern film projectors skyrocketing to $200,000. It looks like he mostly has antique or vintage projectors, but we’re sure this collection also costs a pretty penny.

34. Police Caps

In 2015, Andreas Skala from Berlin, Germany earned the Guinness World Record for having the largest collection of police hats. There were a total of 2,290 hats, and the collection has been growing since then. Skala is a part of the International Police Association, and his interest first began when his grandfather gave him a hat from the Samaritans. The obsession has only grown since then, and he continues to collect the hats to this very day.

33. Miniature Chairs

A woman named ​​Barbara Hartsfield has a large collection of tiny chairs. While working as a psychiatric nurse, she decided to write about pregnant patients. So she bought her first tiny chair with a doll sitting in it. This sparked her interest in tiny chairs, and led to her starting a large collection. In 2013, she achieved the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of miniature chairs, which totaled over 3,000. She opened the Museum of Miniature Chairs in Stone Mountain, Georgia so that the public can see her collection if they like.

32. Hamburgers

Harry Sperl, also known as Hamburger Harry owns the largest collection of hamburger related items in the world. He has 3,724 hamburger items as of 2017 when he won the Guinness World Record. One of his favorite items is the Hamburger Harley, which is a motorcycle customized to look like- you guessed it- a cheeseburger. If you would like to see a video of Harry’s hamburger collection, click here.

31. Troll Dolls

Sherry Groom from Alliance, Ohio owns the largest troll doll collection in the world. She started collecting troll dolls when she was a little girl, and never stopped as an adult. In 2012, she won the Guinness World Record for the biggest Troll doll collection. She owns 8,000 unique dolls, but over 20,000 when you count the duplicates. There were so many dolls, that she opened the Troll Hole Museum to allow people to see her collection. 

30. Creepy Dolls

This next collection isn’t necessarily the biggest collection of creepy dolls in the world. But it has become famous because they all face out on a balcony in Caracas, Venezuela. The building belongs to an artist named Itanis Gonzalez, and part of it has become a museum. As you might imagine, the locals don’t like the dolls. A lot of people even avoid walking past the building at night, because it’s so creepy. Some people even call it demonic.

29. Fast Food Toys

It was common for many of us to have collections of our favorite McDonald’s toys when we were kids. But one man named Percival Lugue has taken that to a whole other level. He received the Guiness World Record for the most fast food chain toys, and his collection has now grown to over 20,000 individual pieces. He dreams of one day opening a museum to showcase the toys so that she can share the joy with others.

28. Fossilized Poop

When you think about a dinosaur fossil collection, you probably imagine the bones of the creatures that once roamed the earth. But at 1,277 pieces, a man named George Frandsen owns the world’s largest collection of fossilized poop. His obsession began in college, when he first encountered fossilized poop in his Paleontology class. Coprolite is the proper term for fossilized poop, and it’s actually more rare and valuable than regular fossils. If you want to see a video of George and his collection, click here.

27. Traffic Cones

David Morgan has collected perhaps one of the most boring things a person could, which is traffic cones. He has over 500 different kinds of traffic cones, and achieved the Guinness World Record for his collection. Back in 1986, he was involved in a legal dispute where he had to prove that traffic cones were different, and he won the case. This sparked an interest in him, and he continued to collect the cones for years. Now, he won his world record and has even appeared in a calendar in his home in the UK.

26. Stones

Over the course of 50 years, Luigi Lineri from Verona, Italy has assembled a massive collection of stones. He has thousands of stones in his home that are in all different shapes and sizes. Many of them look like they were in the shape of animals. He has created a building that’s being called “The Cathedral of Stones”, where people can visit to see his collection. There is no record of Luigi holding a Guinness World Record, but he just may win if he were ever to enter himself in the running to be considered for the achievement.

25. Napkins

Everyone buys napkins for their home, but a woman named Antonia Kozakaza has taken it to a whole other level. She has over 80,000 napkins. Antonia won the Guinness World Record for having the most napkins, but since her collection keeps growing, she keeps beating her own record. She started her collection when a health condition hurt her mobility, and collecting napkins gave her something to do to pass the time. Now, she has taken this hobby to the extreme. It’s estimated that her collection is worth over £300,000.

24. Super Soakers

Kids love super soakers, but it’s common that you only find one or two per household. But Chris Reid has gone to a new level with his collection of over 340. There is no record of Chris ever winning a Guinness World Record, but he has photographs of his collection online that he loves to show off to the world.

23. Old Mobile Phones

A lot of people may still hold onto their old flip phones for nostalgic reasons. But no one can compare to the Slovakian collector named Stefan Polgari. He has over 3,500 different vintage cell phones. There are so many of them, that he decided to open a museum in the attic of his house for the public to come and see his massive collection. (By appointment only.) The Slovakian Book of Records recognized his achievement by giving him a certificate for having the biggest cell phone collection in the country. Only time will tell if he would get the Guinness World Record for the biggest collection in the world.

22. Dalmatians

If you’re a fan of Disney, you will have already heard of 101 Dalmatians. This collector took it one step further with her own dotty collection of 3,500 items. Karen Ferrier spent over 17 years assembling her toys, mugs, clothing, and so much more. Even her white car was covered in black dots. But after splitting from her husband, she had to start selling her collection. We’re not sure if she ever achieved the world record for her collection, but there is probably no one else out there who collected as many Dalmatian items as Karen.

21. Bras

According to the NY Post, “Chen Qingzu, 56, stands in a small room with the walls and ceiling covered in bras he collected, in Sanya, Hainan province, China. Chen has collected about 5,000 bras over 20 years after touring more than 30 different colleges around the country for public benefit activities aiming to raise awareness of breast cancer, local media reported.” It’s nice to know that this collection started due to a good cause and not just an odd infatuation with ladies’ undergarments. 

20. McDonald’s Memorabilia

Michael Fountaine owns the largest collection of McDonald’s memorabilia in the world. He collects absolutely everything to do with the restaurant, from advertisements, cups, cardboard boxes, toys, uniforms, signs, you name it. There are 398 different categories in his table of contents. It’s massive. A total of 9 rooms in Mike’s home are dedicated to his collection. Mike started working at McDonald’s when he was 15 years old. By the time he was 30, he was able to work his way up and own his own McDonald’s restaurant. In his own words, “Ketchup runs through my veins.” His goal is to work together with the McDonald’s corporation to open a museum where the proceeds will go to the Ronald McDonald House charity. If you would like to see a video of Mike and his collection, click here.

19. Sugar Packets

Kristen Dennis from Chicago holds the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of sugar packets. She has 9,596 unique packets in her possession. This collection took 13 years and several thousand dollars of investment to attain. We know one thing, it would be an absolute mess if her sugar packets were leaking. If you would like to see a video about Kristen Dennis, click here. 

18. Rubber Ducks

Charlotte Lee from Seattle, Washington loves rubber ducks. She loves them so much that she is the Guinness World Record holder for the largest collection of rubber ducks in the world. The total of the collection was 5,631 as of 2011. Her collection started as a lark. She just collected a few with her friends, and it eventually spiraled to thousands of rubber ducks. If you would like to see a video of the collection, click here to see a Guinness World Record Facebook Live recording. In the video, she said the new number of ducks is closer to 7,000 unique toys.

17. Bowling Balls

This collection may not have won any awards, but it received a lot of attention when he was posted on Reddit. The bowling ball pyramid in the photo contains 1,785 balls. It took over 15 years of collecting to get to that point. The inspiration came from when they saw a photograph back in 2001 of a bowling ball pyramid, and decided that they wanted one of their own. None of the balls are glued together. They’re simply stacked and balanced perfectly on top of one another.

16. Golf Balls

For over 50 years of his life, Dick Falenski collected golf balls. He has over 50,000 balls, and they are all on display in his home. There are so many that he has had custom furniture made to store all of the balls. Others are stacked in containers, and many are inside of a gigantic gumball machine. There is no Guinness World Record title in Dick’s name, but if he were to apply to be recognized, he would surely win the prize.

15. Erasers

Remember going to the school store as a kid and picking up a novelty eraser? Those were the days. This collection appears on a website called Joe Wood Worker, where he shows his eraser collection that currently totals 2,900. Joe spent 34 years collecting these erasers, starting from a school trip he took to the Baltimore Aquarium when he was a boy. This collection could potentially break a Guinness World Record, but Joe would have to apply for it first.

14. Scratchcards

A man named Dave Mannix owns the largest collection of scratch-off-tickets. He has over 100,000 scratch offs that have never been used. He spent roughly £80,000 on the collection, and his goal was to sell them for £500,000 or $617,095. Some of the cards are rare and collectable, featuring limited edition artwork that is no longer available to purchase. Even though he might have a hidden jackpot somewhere in one of those cards, Dave refuses to scratch a single one.

13. Toy Cows

Everyone better “moove” over, because the next collection will knock your socks off. It’s a collection of 1,679 cow stuffed toys owned by a French model named Emeline Duhautoy. There is no mention if she has ever tried to get her collection submitted to the Guinness World Record, so it may not be the biggest in the entire world if you were to come down to it. But it’s still massive, and worth taking a look at.

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12. Nails

Richard Jones spent over 50 years gathering over 3,000 nails from all over the world. Each of the nails is unique, and he has them on display on cases in frames. Jones told the Daily Mail, “I want to educate people about nails – if you think nails are boring come and see my collection it will change your mind.” There was no mention of Jones attaining a Guinness World Record, or if he ever attempted to apply for one. It seems as though he’s just happy owning his nails.

11. Dresses

One couple- Margot and Paul Brockman have accumulated one of the world’s largest dress collections. Over the course of their lifetime, they have accumulated 55,000 dresses. They own so many, that they needed to rent out a massive warehouse to fit them all. But in 2013, they decided it was time for some of them to be sold. They made around $100,000 at the beginning of their journey, and expect that the total value of all the dresses to be over $1 million.

10. Smurfs

Gerda Scheuers is the Guinness World Record holder for the largest collection of Smurf memorabilia. It totals more than 11,400 individual pieces. She isn’t sure how much the collection is worth in total. But each individual item is worth between 50 cents and $10,000. So she estimates that she may be able to get $100,000 if she sold some of her bigger items. If you would like to see a video of Gerda’s collection, click here.

9. Beer Cans

Jeff Lebo started his beer can collection when he was a kid. Back then, a lot of kids did it as sort of a naughty hobby. But even as an adult, Jeff never stopped. He even owns the very first beer can ever created from American Can Co. Now, he has amassed over 100,000 cans, and the collection is worth between two to three million dollars. If you would like to see a video of Jeff’s beer can collection, click here.

8. Funko Pops

Paul Scardino started his Funko Pop collection in 2017 when he received two for his birthday. And by the time he won the Guinness World Record in 2021, he attained 5,360 figurines. All of the figures are displayed outside of their boxes on shelves in his basement. Each shelf has a different category of Funko Pops, and he keeps them all very organized. Whenever he wants to collect a new line of Funko Pops, he has to downsize the collection somewhere by selling figures on eBay to make room for new ones. If you would like to see a video about Paul’s Funko Pop collection, click here.

7. Gaming Consoles

Linda Guillory owns over 2,400 unique gaming systems. And they’re not just the traditional gaming systems that you would think of like Nintendo Switch and N64. Her collection includes all types of LCD screen games, including gaming watches and miniature arcade game systems. Many of the games Linda buys are from eBay, and she challenged herself to see if she could fix broken vintage games. She even took several trips to Japan to buy vintage games. If you would like to see a video of Linda’s collection, click here.

6. Video Games

A man named Tony Romero Monterio from Richmond, Virginia has won the Guinness World Record for the largest video game collection in the world. With over 20,139 video games, it took auditors over 8 days to count the massive collection. He prides himself in completing every single game that came out for every console in North America. If you would like to see a video about Tony Romero Monteiro’s collection, click here.

5. Studio Ghibli Memorabilia 

Eloïse Von Velvet from France is the owner of the largest Studio Ghibli collection in the world. She owns 1,304 items and earned the Guinness World Record. Some of her most prized possessions are her Ponyo music boxes, as well as a large Jiji statue from Kiki’s Delivery Service. She was quoted saying “It’s my life”, because she spends 3 to 4 hours per night on the Internet and often gets up in the middle of the night to bid on something from eBay. If you’d like to see a video about Eloise and her collection, click here.

4. Model Cars

Billy Karam from Zouk Mosbeh, Lebanon owns the world’s largest collection of toy cars, totaling 37,777. He was actually a former race car driver himself, and began collecting these toys as a hobby. Soon enough, his wife got sick of it, and told him he needed to take it out of the house. His collection is housed in the lower half of a giant warehouse garage, where his brother keeps a collection of real race cars. He actually owns 6 Guinness World Records for his models and dioramas. If you’d like to see a video of Billy Karam’s collection, click here.

3. Star Wars

The largest collection of Star Wars Memorabilia belongs to a man named Steve Sansweet. He houses his collection of 500,000 items in northern California at a place called Rancho Obi-Wan, which he opens to the public as a museum. In 2015, people from the Guinness World Records came to check his collection, and they were only able to audit 93,260 items before they gave up and said it was good enough to win the award. It’s too many to even count! If you would like to see a video about Steve Sansweet and his Star Wars collection, click here.

2. Sneakers

The term “sneakerhead” is given to someone who loves sneakers so much, they hold onto a giant collection, even if they don’t wear every single pair. But the biggest sneakerhead of them all is a man named Jordy Geller from San Diego, United States, who owns the Guinness World Record for biggest shoe collection. He owns 2,388 pairs of sneakers, and keeps them in his warehouse which he calls a “ShoeZeum”. Since all of these rare sneakers are in their original boxes, the entire collection was estimated to be worth over $1 million. If you would like to see a YouTube video about Jordy, click here.

1. Harry Potter Wizarding World Memorabilia

A lot of people own Harry Potter and the Wizarding World collections in their homes, but no one is as big of a fan as Victoria Maclean in South Wales. She spent 18 years of her life collecting 3,686 items of Wizarding World memorabilia. One of her most treasured items is a Platform 9 ¾ snow globe from the San Francisco Music Box Company. And one of the most difficult items she attained was a golden snitch puzzle from Japan. Victoria said that she was incredibly proud to attain the Guinness World Record, and that it was the biggest achievement of her life. If you would like to see a YouTube video about Victoria, click here. Eventually, Victoria was de-throned from her spot at #1 by a woman who has over 5,000 Harry Potter items. You can find that updated video here.