These people, who are in the Guinness Book of Records, have amassed the world's largest collections of things that you would never have thought to start collecting.
1. Umbrella covers
Nancy Hoffman from Peaks Island (Maine, USA) owns the largest collection of umbrella covers (730 unique items). You can visit her museum, which she created on her home island, and even sing along with her accordion in person.
2. Bottled water labels
The Italian Lorenzo Pescini has collected a collection of labels from 8650 types of bottled water from 185 different countries and 1683 different sources.
3. Troll dolls
Sherry Groom from Ohio set a record by collecting 2,990 unique Troll dolls in 2012. Now the collection has grown to 3,500 dolls.
4. Hygienic air bags (in case of vomiting)
Nick Vermeulen from the Netherlands has collected 6,290 packages for airsick passengers from 1,191 different airlines in nearly 200 countries.
5. Miniature chairs
Barbara Hartsfield is the owner of a collection of 3 thousand miniature chairs, which she collected over more than 10 years. After she entered the Guinness Book of Records in 2008, she opened her own museum in Georgia.
6. Daleks
The official 2011 record belongs to Briton Rob Hull, who owns 571 Daleks. Now there are already 1202 copies in the collection. The most surprising thing is that Rob is not even a fan of the television series Doctor Who.
7. Dice
Kevin Cook is a record-breaking dice collector with a collection of 11,097 unique dice. In September 2014, his personal website indicated the number of collected copies was already 51 thousand.
8. Teddy bears
Jackie Miley from South Dakota collected 7106 teddy bears Teddy in 2011 when she set the record. Now she already has 7790 bears.
9. Winnie the Pooh and everything, everything, everything
Deb Hoffman also loves bears, mostly Winnie the Pooh, and has 10,002 Winnie the Pooh and friends items in her collection.
10. Traffic cones
Briton David Morgan has collected the world's largest collection of traffic cones. He only has 137 different cones, and that's about two-thirds of all the varieties ever produced in the world.
11. Talking clock
Mark McKinley from Ohio owns the largest collection of talking clocks; at the time of the record there were 782 of them; Mark currently has 954 talking clocks.
12. Barbie dolls
German woman Bettina Dorfman collected 6,025 Barbie dolls worth a total of 150 thousand US dollars.
13. Toothbrushes
Russian Grigory Fleischer collected 1,320 toothbrushes. By the way, he is a dentist.
14. Stamps with birds
Daniel Monteiro from India is the proud owner of the largest collection of bird stamps. It contains 4911 stamps from 263 countries.
15. “Do not disturb” sign from hotel rooms
Swiss Jean-François Vernetti collected 11,111 “do not disturb” hotel signs from hotels in 189 countries. He started his collection in 1985.
16. Flamingo
Sherry Knight from Florida set a record for collecting flamingos and everything related to these birds. There are 619 copies in her collection.
17. Paper dolls
Malin Fritzell from Sweden collects paper dolls since 1960, she currently has 4,720 of them.
18. Chickens and everything connected with them
Meet Cecil and Joan Dixon, they have collected 6,505 specimens of a variety of chickens.
19. Ready meals
Japanese Akiko Obata collected 8083 copies in her collection. All of them are related to food and all kinds of food products, or rather, they look like ready-made dishes. This includes magnets, stationery, toys, keychains and souvenirs.
20. Card Jokers
Tony De Santis, Italian magician, has the largest collection playing cards with Joker. He collected 8,520 unique card copies.
21. Surfboards
Hawaiian Donald Dettloff has 647 different surfboards in his collection. He made a fence for his house from these boards, which is what he became famous for.
22. Sneakers
Jordan Michael Geller broke the record by amassing the most impressive collection of sneakers (2,388 pairs). His personal shoe museum in Las Vegas now consists of 2,500 pairs.
23. Napkins
German Martina Schellenberg collected the largest collection of paper napkins, a total of 125,866 copies.
24. Erasers
German Petra Engels has a huge wealth of 19,571 erasers from 112 countries. There are no duplicates, all erasers are in a single copy.
25. Mobile phones
German Karsten Tews assembled 1563 models mobile phones, all models are unique and not repeated.
26. Back scratchers
Dermatologist Manfred S. Rothstein of North Carolina collected 675 back scratchers from 71 countries. Real professional!
27. Toe nail cuticle samples
Although not a personal collection, Atlantic PATH collected 24,999 toenail cuticles in 2013 and currently has skin samples from over 30,000 people for the good cause of research into skin disease factors, including cancer.
28. Pokemon
Briton Lisa Courtney holds the official record in 2010. At that time, her collection amounted to 14,410 different souvenirs in the form of Pokemon. Now there are 16 thousand copies in the collection.
Incredible facts
One way to get into the Guinness Book of Records iscollect something that others don't need.
However, it is worth knowing that some places in the book are already taken. If you want to start collecting, eliminate a few items from the list, including umbrella covers, fossilized feces, and toy dinosaurs.
Chair collection
3,000 miniature chairs.
Buying doll-sized chairs on the weekends has become a hobby for Barbara Hartsfield. Over the course of 10 years, until 2008, she managed to assemble a collection of small chairs, which totals more than 3,000 units. Today, in her museum in Stone Mountain, Georgia, USA, you can find bottle chairs, feeding chairs, and chairs made from toothpicks and clothespins.
Toy collection (photo)
571 Daleks (extraterrestrial mutants from the TV series Doctor Who).
Surprisingly, Englishman Rob Hull is not a fan of the Doctor Who series; he only likes to collect Daleks - half-cyborgs and the main opponents of Doctor Who who wanted to conquer the Universe.
Rob began collecting action figures as a child when his parents refused to buy him a toy Dalek. At the age of 29, he bought his first figurine himself. In 2011, he entered the Guinness Book of World Records with his collection of 571 Daleks. The only person who was annoyed by his hobby was his wife.
Strange collection
730 umbrella covers.
Of course, Nancy Hoffman did not become the owner of all the umbrella covers in the world, but this did not stop her from getting into the Guinness Book of Records. In 2012, her collection consisted of more than 730 cases. Since 1996, she has been adding to the collection in her Umbrella Cover Museum, which is open to everyone who wants to visit Peaks Island, Portland, Maine, USA. Her collection includes cases from 50 countries, and she always greets her guests with a live accordion performance of the song “Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella.”
Home collection
3,700 units of snack bar paraphernalia.
Like many Americans, Harry Sperl loves hamburgers. But the Daytona Beach, Fla., resident has gone beyond just ordering his favorite snack—he's spent the last 26 years adding to his collection of diner paraphernalia. Today his collections number more than 3,700 items.
He was nicknamed Hamburger Harry for his passion. It all started when Harry decided to sell one vintage tray that was used in a drive-in diner. To do this, he decided to purchase some plastic hamburgers to decorate his tray and increase his chances of selling it. Then he began to acquire more and more various goods related to snack bars, and even later they began to simply give him such goods as gifts.
He calls his friends and fans "hamburger helpers." Today it can be found in the Guinness Book of Records. His collection includes everything from a waterbed in the shape of a hamburger to a Harley Davidson motorcycle in the shape of the same hamburger. He plans to open a museum shaped like a double cheeseburger soon.
Dinosaur collection
5,000 toy dinosaurs.
Randy Knol's collection will be the envy of any 5-year-old summer child. Randy began collecting toys after he was given a set of Flintstones (famous American cartoon characters) for Christmas, which included a toy dinosaur. Today, even he himself does not know how many dinosaurs he has in his collection. According to him, there are five and six thousand, all of which are stacked in boxes, bags and food containers placed throughout the house.
Experts from the Guinness Book of Records have yet to verify the exact number of toys, but, according to Randy, he knew a couple of people who had a richer collection, “but they are no longer alive.”
Collection of plaques
11,570 DO NOT DISTURB signs.
Some people who travel a lot tend to buy souvenirs as keepsakes. These could be T-shirts, magnets or keychains with a picture of the place they visited. But in the case of Rainer Weichert, these are “Do Not Disturb” signs, which he brings to his home in Germany after his next trip.
In 2014, his collection included more than 11,570 plaques from various hotels, cruise ships and aircraft. All signs were collected from 188 countries. He considers two plaques to be the most valuable: one was part of the Olympic village in 1936, during the Olympics in Berlin, and the other was from the Canadian General Brock Hotel, which is more than 100 years old.
Toy collection
14,500 bistro toys.
Growing up in the Philippines, Percival R. Lugue took great care of his toys. As he grew up, his thriftiness never went away. Today he is the owner of the largest collection of toys purchased from restaurants. fast food. His collection includes more than 14,500 toys, which allowed him to get into the Guinness Book of Records in 2014. He considers the most valuable toys to be a 1999 Inspector Gadget bought at McDonald's, a 1987 Popeye the Sailor Man and a set of Friends from the Philippine bistro chain Jollibee.
Unusual collections
1,277 fossilized excrement.
George Frandsen can easily be called the Indiana Jones of excrement. Today, his collection includes more than 1,277 coprolite specimens (the scientific name for fossilized excrement). In 2016, he temporarily donated his collection to the South Florida Museum. The collection contains specimens from 8 countries. Among them is a 2-kilogram coprolite of a prehistoric crocodile.
The most unusual collections
137 traffic cones.
David Morgan's obsession with traffic cones began in the UK when he began working for Oxford Plastic Systems, the country's largest manufacturer of traffic cones.
In 1986, Oxford Plastic Systems was accused by a competitor of copying one of its traffic cone designs, so Morgan had to search for the same cone to prove that the design was not new and that the company had not copied anything. After this incident, he developed a desire to collect cones.
675 back scratchers.
If you visit the dermatology clinic where Manfred S. Rothstein works, you can see the world's largest collection of back scratchers for free. In 2008, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the doctor had 675 of these useful instruments in his collection.
Hundreds of scratchers are hung along the corridors and in the clinic’s offices. Among them you can find a scratcher with an alligator paw, or a scratcher made from buffalo ribs. It also has electric combs dating back to the 1900s.
Pokemon collection
16,000 Pokemon.
26-year-old Lisa Courtney boasts the largest collection of toy Pokemon. Today the collection contains more than 16,000 units of these fairy-tale creatures. She started collecting Pokémon when she was 17 years old and has been in the Guinness Book of World Records since 2009, when she had just over 12,000 toys. According to the girl, every day she spends about 7 hours searching for new Pokemon models.
Vinyl record collection
6,000,000 vinyl records.
Wealthy Brazilian businessman Zero Freitas has been collecting for almost his entire life. vinyl records. He loves to travel around the world and buy records from the most famous collectors.
The 62-year-old businessman even hired international scouts who shop for him from New York, Mexico City, South Africa, Nigeria and Cairo, thousands of records in his name, after which they send them to him in Brazil.
Since the businessman understood perfectly well that a collection has no meaning if people cannot see it, he decided to found a non-profit musical organization called Emporium. It will play the role of a music library. It is also worth noting that the businessman decided to digitize part of his collection, since a huge amount of music, especially Brazilian, was preserved only on vinyl records.
Doll collections (photo)
300 hyper-realistic dolls.
The author of such an unusual collection is Marilyn Mansfield from Staten Island, New York, USA. It took her tens of thousands of dollars and a huge amount of time to become the owner of more than 300 dolls, which are different high level realism. All the rooms in her house are literally filled with dolls. Moreover, she cares for each doll as if it were her own child.
At over thirty years old, she loves to take dolls for walks, feed them and nurse them. The husband supports his wife and even decided to build a new room for her favorite dolls.
850 models of fire trucks.
Nail Ilyasov from Ufa, who holds the post of colonel of internal affairs, boasts an amazing collection. In addition to domestic cars, Nail also has many foreign ones.
The collection may be included in the Guinness Book of Records, but several cars still need to be obtained for their number to reach 1,000 units. After this, you can safely submit an application to the Book.
Nail Ilyasov himself said that he started collecting cars by pure chance, when his wife gave him a model of a Moskvich.
Publications in the Museums section
Every product has its own merchant: museum collections of Russian entrepreneurs
Collecting and philanthropy were quite common hobbies of representatives of the enlightened merchant class. Thanks to their efforts, today in Russia there is one of the best collections of impressionist and post-impressionist painting in the world, ancient theatrical rarities have been preserved, and masterpieces of Russian art have been concentrated in one place. visual arts. "Kultura.RF" has selected the best merchant collections that can be seen in Russian museums today.
Theater Museum of Alexey Bakhrushin
The main theater museum of the country owes its appearance to the famous Moscow merchant and philanthropist Alexei Bakhrushin. Having loved Maly's productions with the participation of Maria Ermolova, Prov Sadovsky and Alexander Lensky, he once argued with his cousin, who bought various theatrical rarities from antique dealers, who will collect a much larger collection in a month. Bakhrushin won the bet - this is where the collection of the museum he later founded began. The first exhibit of his collection was a series of portraits of serf actors of the Sheremetev Theater in Kuskovo, the author of which was the artist Marianna Kirzinger. Subsequently, Bakhrushin actively bought performance programs, autographed photographs, notebooks with role texts, costume details and props. On June 11, 1894, his collection was shown to the public for the first time - anyone could see this collection in his parents’ house in Kozhevniki. Two years later, the collection received its own building - it was located in Bakhrushin’s new house in the Zatsepsky Val area. He donated this building along with the collection Russian Academy Sciences in 1913. After the revolution, Bakhrushin did not emigrate; he remained in Moscow and until the end of his days was the director of his museum. Today the museum's holdings number about one and a half million items. Among them are archives and manuscripts of Griboyedov, Shchepkin, Chaliapin, Nemirovich-Danchenko and others; theatrical sketches by Vrubel, Bakst, Korovin, Roerich and others; posters of Somov, Altman, Vasnetsov brothers; memorial items of actors, their personal photo collections and much more.
Moscow City Gallery of Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov
Best private collection national painting- collection of Pavel Tretyakov, merchant, owner of the trading house “P. and S. brothers Tretyakov and V. Konshin”, originates in 1856, when Tretyakov acquired the first paintings - “Temptation” by Nikolai Schilder and “Strike with Finnish Smugglers” by Vasily Khudyakov. Subsequently, he actively bought works by Alexei Savrasov, Mikhail Klodt, Vasily Perov, Ivan Shishkin. Tretyakov not only acquired already painted paintings, he ordered new ones - for the portrait gallery prominent figures Russian culture, he asked Perov and Kramskoy to paint portraits best writers of that time - Ostrovsky, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin.
In the 1870s, Tretyakov actively supported the Association of Mobile Travelers art exhibitions, where I bought most of the paintings. In 1872, construction began on the first museum halls, which were attached to living quarters in the Tretyakov house on Lavrushinsky Lane. In 1892, after the death of his brother, who asked in his will to transfer his collection of paintings to the city, Pavel Tretyakov donated his gallery along with the building to Moscow. He was appointed its trustee, and the gallery was named after him and his brother. In 1898, Pavel Tretyakov died. He bequeathed huge funds for the purchase of new paintings, and also donated another house to expand the gallery. Today State Tretyakov Gallery- This is one of the largest collections of Russian painting.
Art gallery of Vladimir Sukachev
Vladimir Sukachev, who inherited the large fortune of his grandfather, the merchant Innokenty Trapeznikov, did not continue his business, but focused on charity and collecting. He bought an estate with a special building for his collection of paintings. His collection included paintings by Ilya Repin, Ivan Aivazovsky, Vasily Vereshchagin, and copies of masterpieces of Western European painting. Anyone could visit the gallery. When Vladimir Sukachev moved to St. Petersburg, he donated his gallery to the city. It became the basis of Irkutsk art museum, which today bears the name of Vladimir Sukachev. Today it is the richest collection of paintings in Siberia.
Private Museum of Peter Shchukin
Pyotr Shchukin, heir to the fortune the richest merchant Ivan Shchukin, was an avid collector. His passion was Russian antiquities, although he also collected a rather impressive oriental collection. Shchukin's collection was so large that in 1892 an entire building was built for it on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street. In 1895 private museum opened the doors to visitors. In 1905, Pyotr Shchukin donated his collection to the city. At that time, his collection consisted of 22 thousand items. It became a branch of the Imperial Russian Historical Museum named after the Emperor Alexandra III. Until the end of his days, Shchukin remained a trustee of the museum. Today, the Asian part of the collection is in the Oriental Museum, the remaining items still form the collection of the Historical Museum. Among the most interesting exhibits of his collection: the shroud of Helen Voloshanka - embroidery from the end of the 15th century depicting the removal of the icon of Our Lady Hodegetria; Radishchev's list of “Travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow”; letters of Ivan Turgenev. In the original building of the Shchukin Museum there is the State Biological Museum named after. Timiryazeva.
The first museum of new Western painting by Sergei Shchukin
Sergei Shchukin, brother of Pyotr Shchukin, was also very passionate about collecting. At first he fell in love with the French impressionists - Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas. Shchukin's next passion was the post-impressionists - Paul Cezanne, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri Rousseau. Shchukin not only bought paintings, he ordered them - especially actively French artist Henri Matisse (in particular, the famous “Dance” and “Music” from the modern collection of the State Hermitage). When replenishing his collection, Sergei Shchukin followed the following principle: “If you experience a psychological shock after seeing a painting, buy it”.
Shchukin's house in Znamensky Lane was literally a museum contemporary art- paintings occupied all the walls. Anyone could view the collection - all they had to do was make an appointment by phone, and the tours were often conducted by the owner of the house himself. Before the revolution, Sergei Shchukin's collection consisted of 256 paintings. In 1918 they were all nationalized. Shchukin's collection was called the first museum of new Western painting and made available to the public. Sergei Shchukin was the director and curator of the museum for some time, but soon left the country. His collection was combined with that of Ivan Morozov in State Museum new Western painting, and in 1948 it was distributed between the Pushkin Museum. Pushkin and State Hermitage.
Handicraft Museum of Sergei Morozov
Sergei Morozov came from a famous Moscow merchant family, one of the richest dynasties in Russia. But he was not particularly interested in family affairs; his passion was the Handicraft Museum. The museum itself opened in 1885 on the initiative of the zemstvo assembly. However, in the first years he did not work very successfully. The real development of the museum began only with the arrival of Sergei Morozov in 1890. Sergei Morozov not only competently managed the museum, he invested his own funds: built a building for a museum in Leontyevsky Lane, organized handicraft workshops in the Moscow region (a basket shop in Golitsyno and a toy shop in Sergiev Posad), financed business trips for handicraft specialists abroad. He donated his own collection of decorative items to the museum. applied arts XVII–XIX centuries, which formed the section of “Russian antiquity”. Under Morozov, a “museum of samples” was organized in the museum under the leadership of Nikolai Bartram, who developed samples of products for crafts and assembled a collection of them. The Vasnetsov brothers, Alexander Golovin, Vasily Polenov collaborated with the museum of samples. After the revolution of 1917, the Morozovs' possessions and property were nationalized, and Sergei Timofeevich himself lived and worked as a handicraft consultant in the building of the Handicraft Museum. Today this museum is part of the All-Russian Museum of Folk and Applied Arts.
Second Museum of New Western Painting
Ivan Morozov belonged to the “Tver” branch merchant family Morozov. Like everyone else in his family, he had good artistic taste - he painted himself (as a child he was taught painting by Konstantin Korovin himself) and was fond of collecting. At first he was interested in Russian artists. However, from 1903 he switched to Western European painting - his first purchase was the painting "Frost at Louveciennes" by Alfred Sisley. Morozov began to actively travel to Paris, where he bought works by Gauguin, Monet, Van Gogh, Matisse, Renoir, Picasso, and became truly interested in the work of Cezanne. Before the revolution, his Western European collection consisted of about 250 paintings. It was also quite impressive Russian collection with paintings by Vrubel, Korovin, Kustodiev, Serov and other artists. He rebuilt the mansion on Prechistenka for his collection: for better illumination of the paintings, according to the design of Lev Kekushev, a glass lantern was cut into the roof of the building. Not everyone could view Morozov’s collection. A personal introduction or recommendation was needed. After the revolution, Ivan Morozov’s collection was nationalized - following the Shchukin collection, it became “the second museum of new Western painting.” Its former owner was appointed deputy curator of his own collection. However, Ivan Morozov did not fulfill the duties assigned to him for long - in 1919, he emigrated to Paris with his wife and daughter. In 1948, his collection, like Shchukin’s, was distributed between the State Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum. Pushkin.
Have you ever loved collecting postcards, stamps, or gum inserts? Surely these hobbies have faded over the years... But these people have devoted more than one year to their hobby - collecting - and this is not the limit. Dimitris Pistiolas from Athens owns the largest collection of video cameras - in total he has 937 models, from antique to modern. 
Since 2003, Chinese collector Wang Guohua has been collecting cigarette packs, some of which he keeps in his room in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. The collection includes 30,000 cigarette packs from more than 100 companies from 10 countries. 
Lisa Courtney's Pokemon collection was included in the Guinness Book of Records. There are 12,113 toys in the collection. 
Ron Hood, who lives in Lewiston, Maine, had his basement converted into... a real museum PEZ candies. Now he has more than 3,000 PEZ candy toys in his collection, although he considers it “small.” 
Farmer Heinrich Kath displays some of his 20,000 beer mugs in Cuxhaven. He himself does not drink beer, but has been collecting mugs since 1997. 
Wally Hammer's collection of rubber ducks was not the largest in the world, although there is not a single repeating duck in the collection. Her collection of 2,469 ducks was just a few hundred short of breaking the world record set by one California woman. 
Guinness World Records has recognized Pam Barker's collection of owls from Leeds as the largest in the world. There are 18,000 owls in her collection. 
Mary Ann Sell of Cincinnati owns a collection of 40,000 View-Master films. 
The keychain, purchased in Vietnam (where he served as a helicopter gunner), was 41-year-old Ron Tyler's first in his now huge collection. 
Sharon Badgley's collection of Santa Clauses is so large (6,000) that it took her three weeks to get them all together.
The unusual discovery was made after representatives of the Protestant congregation Celebration Church in Lakeville (Minnesota, USA) came to inspect the house bequeathed to the church by recently deceased parishioner Dennis Erickson, reports Kare11.com.
Dennis Erickson, who died last December, donated the house and its contents in his will to Celebration Church, where he had been a member for many years.
Supervisor financial service community, Lisa Lundstrom, in a commentary for the publication, said that her first visit to the house donated to the church made an indelible impression on her.
“When I entered, I took my breath away,” she testified: almost all the rooms in the house, all free space- from the hallway to the bedrooms - was filled with shelves on which thousands of scale models of cars were stored. “Literally: from floor to ceiling, in every single room.”
Even the hallways, laundry room and bathrooms had shelving on the walls.
It took several weeks to inventory the collection. According to the compiled catalog, it contains more than 30 thousand car models.
“This is one of the largest collections in the whole world,” noted L. Lindstrom.
Dennis Erickson and his only and main hobby
Lakeville resident and engineer by training Dennis Erickson began collecting model cars at the age of nine and devoted all his free time to this hobby.
He was a regular at antique shops and a regular at car shows, and spent a lot of time searching for models on the Internet. Before last days Erickson placed orders for various models throughout his life, and some of them continue to arrive in the mail at his address even after his death.
Dennis Erickson was the only child in the family. He lived in the house with his parents, and after their death he became its only occupant. The Lakeville church member never married and had no children.
In addition to a huge collection of car models, D. Erickson collected and cataloged thousands of brochures on automotive topics. He assembled the shelves on which his collection was stored with his own hands. The shelves were covered with plexiglass to protect the models from dust.
“He took better care of these little cars than people take care of each other,” said Lisa Lindstrom.
Dennis Erickson died in his sleep at the age of 69.
The fate of the Erickson collection
Since D. Erickson had no family, the Celebration Church community took care of organizing his funeral.
It was decided to sell off the Dennis Erickson collection. Lisa Lindstrom, named executor of D. Erickson's estate in the will, believes it is likely unique collection will be sold in large parts, since selling a multi-thousand collection of individual models may take too long.
L. Lindstrom estimates that the Lakeville church could make six figures from the sale of the Dennis Erickson collection. most of which will go to the treasury of the Celebration Church community. The church already has plans regarding this money: the community intends to use the funds to develop youth ministry.
"I think using the gift that Dennis gave to impact future generations is exactly what he would have wanted," said Celebration Church Pastor Derrick Ross.
Largest collections of car models
The origins of modern model car collecting date back to the 1940s. The authors of the idea for a scale model of the car were sales agents of the largest French automobile concerns.
To make it easier for a future car buyer to imagine their purchase, traveling salesmen began to carry with them exact replicas of the cars they were offering. And the most popular scale today, 1:43, was chosen based on numerous consultations with engineers, artists and even doctors. According to experts, models of this particular scale are both visual and easy to manufacture. Over time, models of other sizes appeared, multiples or close to 43 - 1:87, 1:160, 1:24, 1:12.
However, the most common and popular format remains 1:43. The collection discovered in Lakeville is made up of models of this exact scale.
As of January 2014, Lebanese resident Nabil "Billy" Karam was considered the holder of the official Guinness World Record for collecting model cars. His collection included more than 30 thousand unique models.
However, a resident of San Antonio (Texas, USA), Hank Hammer, has amassed a collection of almost 36.5 thousand scale models since 1968. And taking into account accompanying artifacts (brochures, catalogs, automotive souvenirs, etc.), this collection numbers about 100 thousand items.
At the same time, the collector preferred Porsche car models.
By now, Hank Hammer has abandoned his former hobby. His collection is kept in two specially equipped houses with total area about 280 sq. m.