The 36 Most Unusual Collections

Reading time 13 min

We collectors all have had a passion for some objects and have started our own collection. This collection can become part of our identity and sometimes comes to define us as individuals.

For some, this all-consuming and sometimes invasive passion has remained fairly simple in terms of subject matter: old coins, stamps, etc. But others have developed a passion for less conventional objects.

These collectors with more unusual themes made us want to know more about them and how their passion for these collectibles came about. In this article we offer you the opportunity to discover some amazing and fascinating collections.

This investigation should take you about 11 minutes to read. If you are in a hurry, don't hesitate to keep it in mind for this weekend or this summer.

Monopoly Games

 

 

Neil Scallan has been proclaimed by the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest collector of Monopoly games with 3,029 boxes in his collection. 
The catch for him is that he loves collecting but he doesn't particularly like this board game created in 1935. He keeps them under seal and does not intend to open them because otherwise they would lose 80% of their value. 

 

 

Plastic ducks

 

 

You probably won't understand if we talk about ducklovers, but you will certainly understand if we talk about plastic duck collectors.
This little bath toy became popular in the 1970s. They are real collector's items and the proof is in the American Charlotte Lee, who owns more than 2,100 ducks! 

 

Bowling Balls

 

A collection can also start with a crazy project, and this man is a great example.
He spent 15 years collecting bowling balls to build a pyramid in his garden. It looks like his gamble paid off with this construction of 1,785 balls.  

 

Sand and Dust

 

 

Collections tell a part of our personal story, but why don't they tell our journeys? This is perhaps the question that an arenophile once asked himself.
This collection consists of collecting sand and dust of different textures, colours and places in the world.
A beautiful and amazing collection that makes us travel. I'll let you browse this site where you can see 5,169 sand samples. Enough to make a private beach! 

 

Golf Balls

 

 

The American Dick Falenski, 74 years old, has a beautiful collection of golf balls. He started his collection in 1965.
He has now amassed over 36,000 balls. His collection is extensive and is currently kept at his home.
His balls are kept in custom-made furniture for storage.
His goal is to reach 50,000 balls, and that is all we can wish for!

 

Erasers

 

 

An eraser collector will not use his or her erasers but will carefully display them in a showcase. Especially those with unusual shapes or patterns.
After much research, the largest collection of erasers we have found is 44,099. 

 

PEZ Distributors

 

 

There is no age limit for loving sweets and their dispensers. Régis Berthe has more than 1,400 PEZ dispensers in his collection.
And he plans to expand his collection even further. With only a hundred collectors in France, this is a rare and unusual passion. 

 

 

 

Pringles boxes

 

 

Some packaging is art, and this is what the Pringles box collectors are proving. These chips were a real revolution. 
Unbreakable because of their shape, their sometimes surprising taste and moreover, sold in tubes allowing them to have more chips than air. It was these  flavors that made the brand famous from the 1980s onwards. 
Today these famous boxes were collected, and we found a nice collection of 1,098 tubes. All that remains is to find out if they are empty or full... 

 

 

“Do not disturb” signs

 

 

Another possibility is to combine your passion for travel with a collection.
The famous signs that we often forget to hang on our hotel doors, even though they are so aptly named when we want to get used to jet lag: "Do not disturb". 
The Italian Eduardo Flores has the most beautiful collection of these signs with 15,000 different examples. These signs can be made of wood, paper or even small objects, such as stuffed animals. They date from the 1940s, for the oldest, to the present day. 

 

 

Signalling Cones

 

 

David Morgan, a 73-year-old British man, is a member of the Dull's Men Club where he is nicknamed "Cone-Man the Barbarian" and there’s a reason! 
David has been collecting traffic cones since 1970 and has over 500 of them at home.
A collection that takes up a lot of space but it's true that it's always sad to see a cone alone on the roadside.

 

 

Vomit bags

 

 

What are commonly known as vomit bags are the small foldable, waterproof bags that are usually found on planes. They first appeared in 1949. 
Rest assured, they are collected unused! 
The record for the largest collection of these little bags belongs to Niek Vermuelen, who has been listed in the Guinness Book of Records since 1986 and now has over 6,290 bags.  

 

 

Garden Gnomes

 

 

Ann Atkin likes to be surrounded, especially when she is in her garden.
This Englishwoman entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2008 with an impressive collection of 2,032 gnomes accompanying her in her gardening. 
She started her "gnome reserve" in 1979.

 

 

Umbrella Covers

 

 

In Maine, you can visit a museum dedicated to umbrella covers. This museum was created by Nancy Hoffman and she owns the entire collection.
She started it after she found her first umbrella covers lost in her home. She confessed she had stolen some of them from department stores. 
She has over 700 of them and they are all on display. A place to visit without hesitation. 

 

 

Back Scratchers

 

 

Dr. Manfred Rothstein has brought some of his work home with him. A dermatologist by profession, he is used to dealing with irritated and itchy skin, so he is a great connoisseur of backscratchers.
The latest data on his collection dates from 2008. He has 675 backscratchers from 71 different countries. 
His patients think of him when they travel and bring him back their finds to complete his collection. 

 

 

Microprocessors

 

 

What would be the name of a CPU collector? A processorophile perhaps? That's what we'll call Cat Vaska, a young Russian with an impressive collection of computer processors.
Vaska did not specify the exact number of processors he keeps meticulously, but it seems that the list is very long!
He is not so interested in recent CPUs, preferring to focus on those dating from 1970 to 1990. He doesn't hesitate to vary the pleasures between the different brands from Intel to AMD, passing by more original brands straight out of the Soviet Union.

 

 

Nail Clippings

 

A collection for a good cause! 
Atlantic PATH has entered the Guinness Book of Records with the largest collection of nail clippings. Almost 30,000 of them. 
This group of scientists is studying the various factors that lead to the development of cancer. They use body measurements, blood samples and, of course, nail clippings. 

 

 

Coca-Cola cans 

 

 

When a brand becomes a common name, it is easy to imagine that it generates enough enthusiasm for collections to be born about it. 
The largest collection of cans is held by Italian Davide Andreani. His collection started when he was five years old.
In March 2017 he had over 15,000 cans, he certainly has more today. We hope he hasn't drunk it all though! 

 

 

Navel Plushies

 

 

What could be more satisfying than collecting what we produce ourselves? That must be what Australian librarian Graham Baker thought. 
For the past 30 years, he has been collecting his own belly button plushies, the little balls of fabric that get lodged in belly buttons when clothes are rubbed, and sorting them into jars over the years.
In 2010, he entered the Guinness Book of Records with 22 grams of his little productions. On that occasion he also said that thermal underwear provided a larger and more beautiful production. We thought this was very important information to share here. 

 

 

Coprolites

 

 

1,277 fossilised excrements, that's a thing! This is the collection of George Frandsen, an American who entered the Guinness Book of Records.
He became fascinated with these unusual fossils when he was taking palaeontology classes at the age of 18. 
They are not just rocks but real pieces of history and of an ecosystem that has sometimes disappeared. Thanks to these excrements, we can find out which plants have sometimes disappeared or which animals these excrements might have belonged to. 
To conclude, we quote George: “You must have passions. Mine is coprolites and whatever yours is, you have to live it”. A beautiful life lesson. 

 

 

Joker Cards

 

 

Donato de Santis, an Italian magician, has the largest collection of Joker cards. It consists of 8,520 cards. 
The collection was started by his mentor, Fernando Riccardi, in 1999. Riccardi donated the collection (at the time 2,000 pieces) to Donato, who promised to continue the collection. And he has kept his word! 
The uniqueness of this collection is that each Joker is different on each card.

 

 

Milk Bottles

 

 

Paul Luke started his collection in 1987 when he was only 9 years old and earned his pocket money by working with a milkman.
This little job launched him into his career and his collection. Today he is a salesman for a large dairy company and owns over 10,000 bottles of milk.
He has created a miniature museum for himself to keep them all. A consuming passion for milk!

 

 

Plastic food

 

 

Sampuru are an important part of Japanese food culture. These fake plastic food displays are far above menus in Japan as they allow a more representative visualization of a dish to be served. Sampuru makers are very meticulous in making them as realistic as possible. 
These dishes are so popular that they are sometimes collected, as is the case for Akiko Obata. She started her collection at the age of 10 and has a room dedicated to her collection of fake dishes. 8,083 have been counted. Enough to make your mouth water! 

 

 

Paper napkins 

 

 

Martina Schellenberg has a passion for paper towels.
She keeps more than 125,866 napkins in her home in Schwieberdingen, Germany. 
This large collection allowed her to enter the Guinness Book of Records on 26 June 2013. 

 

 

Banana Tags

 

 

Becky Martz has spent 29 years collecting and inventorying more than 21,000 banana labels from all over the world.
This American collector enjoys "saving" these tragically fated labels from the trash. Becky's labels date back to 1960.
She often attends meetings of label collectors. There are an estimated 375 collectors worldwide. 

 

The Full Sugar Sachets

 

 

Christine Henrot is Belgian, a teacher and a glycophile. Proof that many things can be compatible. 
If we say that glycophilia is the collection of full sugar sachets, it is because if they are empty we speak of periglycophilia. 
But let's get back to Christine who has more than 50,000 sugar sachets she keeps preciously in her "sugar cellar".
She has thought of everything to keep it well, like adding a humidifier to her cellar. Sugar is no joke. 

 

 

McDonald's Objects

 

 

If you thought you were a McDonald's lover, you would pale in comparison to Mike Fountaine.
The 60-year-old Pennsylvania man collects all the McDonald's merchandise. 
The result is a record 75,000 items, or the largest McDonald's collection in the world! 

 

 

Mammals’ Phalluses

 

 

When a private collection becomes a museum, you get the Phallus Museum in Iceland, in Reykjavik to be precise. 
Sigurdur Hjartarson, founder and director of the museum started his collection before sharing it with the world in 1997.
In 2016, the museum had 282 phallus specimens of 93 different species and 350 artistic objects related to phallology. 
It is known that a call for donations to obtain a human phallus had been made and that a man had pledged to offer it to the institution post-mortem. The question is, did it already enter the collection? To be continued.  

 

 

Bricks

 

 

There are only a dozen in France who collect bricks, like Christian Marsaud, a young retired man from La Roche-sur-Yon in Vendée. 
In his garage, he has 400 bricks that cover a whole wall. He is a real enthusiast who can tell you for hours about the history of each brick he has collected.
Thanks to his clay blocks, he retraces a whole part of the history of patrimony and humanity. With Christian, all the long speeches will not let you marble. 

 

 

Toothpaste Tubes

 

 

To make sure your teeth are always clean, that's what Val Kolpakov thought when he started his collection.
This American is a dentist and has chosen to display part of his collection in his office. 
At the same time, with over 2,037 tubes of toothpaste from all over the world, he can afford to display parts of it in different places. 

 

 

Toasters

 

 

Kenneth Huggins is a multi-recidivist collector. After phonographs, radios and cars, he chose a less... common theme to indulge in the pleasure of collecting.
This is how he became passionate about toasters and has been collecting them exclusively since 1995. 
He became a member of the Toaster Collectors Association in 1999 and since then he has not hesitated to organise their annual convention at his home. To date, he has the largest collection of toasters with 1,284 pieces. 

 

 

Cookie Jars

 

 

Edith Eva Fuchs has the largest collection of biscuit jars with 2,700 single jars (and up to 7,000 with all her doubles). 
All the duplicates are on display and used in her ice cream shop. She says her favourite jar is Roy Rogers on his horse Trigger.
She started her collection in 1988 and is now in the Guinness Book of Records.

 

 

Condoms

 

 

An original collection owned by Italian Amatore Bolzoni. He entered the Guinness Book of Records in 2004 with his impressive collection of condoms.
He has been collecting them since 1980 and now has 2,077 in his possession. So size does matter sometimes. 
He has many varieties from Europe, Africa, the Americas and the Far East. Some of his condoms are classic, others much less so, such as musical condoms, others from the American army, but also from World War II soldiers.
Its oldest condom is dated back to the 19th century and was made from sheep intestine.

 

 

Pizza boxes

 

 

For Scott Weiner, it is evidence to say that pizza is life! 
This young American manager of a "pizza tour" company claims to eat 15 slices of this delight per week. And that's not all, he has been collecting pizza boxes that he finds unique and from all over the world since 2009. 
He has collected 595 boxes and keeps them at his home in Brooklyn. He even has the world's largest pizza box measuring 54 inches (about 137 centimeters).

 

 

Ingested Objects

 

 

A collection held at the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. It belonged to the laryngologist Chevalier Quixote Jackson who practiced medicine for 75 years.  
The collection consists of 2,374 objects that had been swallowed or inhaled by his patients. He extracted a large number of foreign bodies from throats, oesophagus and lungs. All without anaesthetic.
The objects that were found were varied: nails, screws, buttons, dentures, toys, padlocks, rosaries, crucifixes, poker chips, squirrel vertebrae and a miniature trumpet. He considered it a record to have extracted 32 different objects from one child and we tend to agree with him. 

 

 

Fortune Cookies’ Messages

 

 

Kris L. Duke wants to be sure of his destiny and to find out more about his future, he has been collecting messages hidden in Fortune Cookies for 20 years. 
He entered the Guinness Book of World Records on 1 August 2019 with 4,350 different fortune messages, all of which were intended for him! 

 

 

Zoomorphic sculptures 

 

 

Obviously, we couldn't finish this top 36 without talking about at least one collection present on our platform.
We present to you the collection of an active member: Togirix25. He makes and collects these fabric sculptures. 
You will find birds, unicorns, cows and other cuddly toys often set in nature with country settings.
We would like to thank him for these beautiful stagings! 

 

 

We hope you enjoyed this poetic moment which reminds you that no collection is shameful but simply unusual!

Do you have any "unusual" or "strange" passions and collections?
Don't hesitate to share them with us in the comments! 

 

 

Magalie from CollecOnline.