We all know someone who owns a collection of some sort. Maybe a book collection, a vintage coins collection, or even a stuffed animals collection. But the collections you're about to see right now look nothing like your grandma's spoon collection. We tried to assemble 40 of the weirdest collections we can find, for your entertainment. This is not for the weak-hearted or the easily grossed out, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
1. LOVE LOVE LOVE
60-year-old Bob Gibbins, and his wife Lizzie, 55, have a rather unusual collection of 240 different kinds of love dolls that they like dressing up and going on shopping trips with. All in all, Bob and his wife estimate they’ve spent around $160,000 since they started collecting love dolls.
Bob says he has always been interested in dolls, but his passion really started to grow when he used to buy rag dolls and other toys for his two kids. He then moved on to buying shop mannequins for a few years and amassing a pretty impressive collection, but it wasn’t until he found an online forum about silicone dolls that he realized that’s what he really wanted to collect.
2. Nail Clippings In A Jar
Richard Gibson displays his most cherished item on a shelf in his Lafayette, Louisianaa, home. Gibson, a 58-year-old oil investor, was clipping his toenails when he decided to put the clippings into the manicure box instead of the trash can.
It took him only two years to fill the box, but by then he was hooked and moved his collection to the glass jar we can see in the photo. Gibson believes the jar is 99 percent full but hasn’t decided what he is going to go once it's filled.
3. A Fluffy Collection
Graham Barker of Perth, Western Australia, is a navel fluff collector. Navel fluff is that lint that accumulates in the belly button. If you're still not sure what it is, go ask your dad, maybe he can show you.
Barker has made a twenty-year hobby of collecting, studying, and cataloging his fluff, and his navel fluff collection is truly a thing to behold. You can see the different fluff colors, indicating the shirt colors he used over the years labeled on the bottle.
4. That's Hot!
Vic Clinco loves hot sauce. He loves it so much, that every side of his living room wall, from ceiling to floor, is lined with shelves of hot sauce bottles, in all sizes and shapes, from pocket-size Cholula to a glass skull containing a high-priced spicy concoction - 9000 bottles in total!
Clinco met his wife 22 years ago. She gave him six or seven hot sauces for their first Christmas together. After the unwrapping, he placed them in the breakfast nook. He had already begun collecting spicy memorabilia. From that point, collecting became purposeful, and he started wondering what was out there.
5. Cones On Cones
David Morgan is 64 and a sales director for a plastics company. But if you ask him what is his passion, you'll probably hear 2 words: Traffic cones. Thanks to his passion, he is now a proud member of the Guinness Book of Records as the owner of the largest collection of road cones in the world , with more than 500 cones!
And while he admits his hobby is an unusual one, he insists it all makes perfect sense. He began the collection in 1986, while involved in a legal dispute with a rival manufacturer over the design of a cone. Mr. Morgan scoured the country for cones, to prove the design had existed previously and won the case.
6. OH Deer!
IF THERE WAs a world record for most antlers collected by an individual, Jim Phillips, also know as Jim Antlerman Phillips from Montana would certainly be in the top 3. Phillips has acquired more than 16,000 antlers over six decades of scouring the backcountry surrounding his home.
The most unique thing in Phillips's collection is that he hasn't bought even a single antler in his collection. Though he sometimes trades for antlers, most of his collection has come from days or weeks spent hiking alone through the foothills, mountains, and valleys surrounding the headwaters of the Missouri River.
7. Life Tastes Good ?
Davide Andreani received his first Coca Cola can back in 1982 when he was just 5 years old, an event which was to kick off a lifetime's obsession. He began collecting the distinctive tins, with his father bringing him home unusual designs when returning from his European business trips.
At the last count, Coke lover Davide was in possession of a record 10,558 unique single-brand cans from 87 countries, setting a new Guinness World Records title for the largest collection of soft drink cans - same brand. All of the cans have been emptied through a small hole in the bottom. If they were left on display unemptied, they could oxidize or even explode.
8. Sweeney Todd?
John Reznikoff has samples of hair that pretty much can make a hundred wigs. His collection includes everything from presidents to authors to assassins, but before you start to think that’s super creepy and weird, You also need to remember that most of our mothers captured a lock of hair from our first haircuts and saved it in our baby books.
When we say the collection is includes everything, we mean it. He has both Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, Jimi Hendrix, Edgar Allen Poe, and even Marilyn Monroe.
9. Loving It ?
You might think you're lovin' that Big Mac, but your devotion is meaningless compared to McDonald's superfan Mike Fountaine. The 60-year-old Pennsylvania native has been collecting McDonald's merch for 45 years and had more than 75,000 pieces - the largest McDonald's collection in the world.
It all began in 1969 when the 16-year-old Fountaine received a lapel pin to commemorate his first year of fry-cooking at McDonald's. Today, Fountaine owns so many cups, pins, and toys that they take up nine rooms in his home.
10. Already Been Chowed
What is this gigantic yellow stained ball of goopness? You might wonder... well, It's made out of 95,200 pieces of chewed Nicorette gum. It's was created by Barry Chappell, who started rolling his chewed gum into a ball back in 2006. Six years later, it's now 62 inches in circumference and weighs 175 pounds of rubber, saliva and nastiness.
Chappell has a pretty strict formula for adding gum to the gumball that involves heating, kneading, stretching, and melting. Sounds like every teacher's worst nightmare, or maybe an inspirational piece made to glorify Patrick star's Gumball gift?
11. Gotta Catch 'Em All
Lisa Courtney is a Pokémon fan from the United Kingdom. She is the Guinness World Record holder for having the largest collection of Pokémon memorabilia, including 17,127 different items as of July 18, 2017. According to her, she has been collecting for over fourteen years. Her collection includes items from the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and Japan.
Some items from her collection (as well as her Guinness World Records certificate) have been displayed at the Museum of Hertford as part of an exhibition on popular culture.
12. Cruella De Ferrier
Karen Ferrier, who has collected WAY MORE than 101 items since 1992. The exact figure? 3,500 items…or so. It all started because of Ditto, her Dalmatian puppy, and not an obsession with the Disney film.
The house full of black and white dotted mugs, magnets, clothing, jewelry, ornaments, puzzles, suitcases, toilet paper, rollerblades, and even a Dalmatian Smart Car was too much for Karen’s husband, who divorced her.
13. A Helping Hand
One of the most annoying things ever is when your back is itchy and you can't find anything to scratch it with and it only makes sense that a doctor who treats itchy, irritated skin happens to have a spot in the Guinness World Records for the largest collection of back scratchers — those handy-dandy tools that help us reach difficult-to-access body parts.
Dr. Manfred S. Rothstein displays his formidable collection at his Fayetteville, North Carolina, practice. As for the last count, he had 675 implements — standard plastic models as well as tools crafted from jade, leather, corn cobs, blown glass, bamboo, brass, and buffalo ribs — hailing from 71 countries.
14. Squeaky Clean
The largest collection of soaps belongs to Carol Vaughan (UK) who has collected more than 5000 individual bars of soap since 1991. Her hobby has seen her build up the haul from all over the world and from as far as Australia.
Miss Vaughn said she loves finding a new soap she hasn't seen before and likes to find ones that might seem unusual. "I was given one by a friend that is shaped liked cheesecake, you don't know whether to eat it or use it to have a wash," she said.
15. Awareness Museum
56-year-old Chen Qingzu has been collecting only one thing for more than 20 years, in hopes to raise awareness for breast cancer; bras. The collection is on display inside his bra museum in Yancheng town, Sanya city, south Chinas Hainan province.
Chen Qingzu has 5,000 bras he had collected from female students at more than 30 colleges and universities over 20 years, according to media reports.
16. One Man's Fear Is Another Man's collection
This man doesn't collect rare coins or vintage watches. He collects something many people will pay good money to get rid of, actually...Terry Prouty collects masterpieces of nature, stunning nests built by the first creatures to invent paper: wasps. By now, he has over 100, which fills a room in his apartment.
Prouty said in an interview: "They build incredible nests I think are masterpieces of nature. It’s so amazing that creatures with brains the size of a grain of sand could build something that’s so intricate."
17. A National Hero
This next collection might not be as weird as the ones before him, but the attention it grabbed sure is. Myrtle Young, a potato chips inspector from Kentucky, selected potato chips that reminded her of something or someone for her collection.
She started her collection in 1987 when she saved a chip that looked like a face from the conveyor belt. At the time of her death, she was said to have between 250 and 300 chips in her collection. She got so famous that she appeared on morning shows and even has a Wikipedia page about her and her collection. In the photo, we see 2 chips she called "dirty socks" from her collection on the "Johnny Carson Tonight Show".
18. THAT'S BANANAS!
Becky Martz, of Orlando, has spent the past 29 years collecting and cataloging more than 21,000 banana labels from around the world. Martz's hobby has led her to Germany, Costa Rica, and Ecuador where she's met with fellow collectors and picked up random banana labels
When asked what makes her collection unique, Martz said: "What makes them special to me is that they are ephemeral. They are meant to be thrown away. For some reason, that makes them even more precious to me. I have rescued many labels from the trash or a banana peel on the ground. I feel sad when I see someone has thrown a peel away with the label still on it, so I rescue it."
19. This One's For Riri
The largest collection of umbrella covers is over 730 covers and belongs to Nancy Hoffman (USA), in Peaks Island, Maine, USA. To showcase the collection, her house became the site of the Umbrella Cover Museum in 1996.
The collection includes covers from 50 different countries and was established as a celebration of the mundane. So... 730 umbrella covers..makes you wonder what did she do with the umbrellas?
20. SUGAR SWEET
If people ask for directions to Candyland, maybe you should point them to Greenfield, the home of a collector named Phil Miller. Phil has been collecting sugar packs and sugar cube wrappers since 1978. Miller has thousands of sugar packets and he started with a set of the Presidents of the United States, as seen in the photo.
Apparently, people who collect sugar packs are called sucrologists. What a strange name for such a sweet hobby!
21. "I Only Drink Voss Water"
Lorenzo Pescini from Florence, Italy has a collection of more than 8,650 different bottled water labels from 185 different countries of 1,683 different springs. Pescini started collecting water bottle labels in 1992 and never stopped even to this day.
Lorenzo Pescini holds the Guinness World Records for the largest collection of bottled water labels since 2009.
22. Nailed It!
Maybe bizarre isn't the right term for this one... most people will deem this one as boring or amazingly dull. But if you ask Richard, he believes he has a fascinating collection, and that he might change your mind about it. Richard Jones, 78, has amassed thousands of nails from across the globe.
He hopes to change the way people see the humble nail after spending the last 50 years collecting more than 3,000 of them. His collection features nails from as far as Australia, Germany, Italy, and the United States.
23. The Milkman
Paul Luke, 33, collected his first milk bottle when he was just 9 years old while earning pocket money as a 'milkman's mate'. His collection has swelled to more than 10,000 bottles over the years - with some of the rarest pieces dating back to the 1890s.
After a lot of collecting, Paul's collection grew so large that it wouldn't fit inside his home anymore. He had to build a museum in his back garden. Even he admits it's a bit out of hand.
24. PG Family Fun
Chris Reid now has about 340 Super Soakers overall, including about 240 unique designs. "I have a small number of other water guns as well", he explains, "but these figures only refer to official Super Soaker brand water blasters". His very first Super Soaker, the green and yellow 50, is autographed by Super Soaker inventor himself Lonnie Johnson.
"There are still many rare and exotic Super Soakers I'm trying to add to my collection", Ried says on his website, But one can only imagine the epic water fight he could host in his back-yard.
25. IF YOU HEAR THE BAD ROCKIN DON'T COME KNOCKING
Some people like to be left alone with their thoughts, especially when on vacation. Jean-François Vernetti from Switzerland probably really likes his quiet time. Why do I say that you might ask? Well, Vernetti has the largest collection of 'Do Not Disturb' signs.
He has collected 11,111 different 'Do Not Disturb' signs from hotels in 189 countries across the world since 1985. Maybe people should take the hint and NOT DISTURB him.
26. EYE Love It
Mike, the son of an eye optic specialist, came to "Silver and Gold Pawn Shop" in Vegas to try and sell his dad's vintage glass eyes collection. The eyes were made using the hand-blown glass technique from 1890 - 1939. The dill eventually failed, but the fake eyes were appraised in about 10-30 dollars a piece!
Today, we don't make glass eyes from glass anymore, we make them out of plastic. In fact, we stopped using glass for fake eyes around the time of World War 2.
27. The House Of horrors
Art is subjective, We all know that. But what happens when artists try to push the limits even further, stretching the line between art and a straight-up horror show?
Artist Etanis Gonzalez, from Venezuela, has a pretty edgy way to decorate his balcony - He filled it with all kinds of bits and pieces of kids playing dolls, making the balcony look more like a cemetery or catacombs rather than a happy playground.
28. Tank Goes Brrrr
Jacques Littlefield was the founder of the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation (MVTF), also called the Littlefield Collection. Jacques collected many vintage military vehicles including a Panther tank, several M4 Sherman tanks, and an SS-1 Scud launcher. He had over 220 military vehicles to his name.
Littlefield's fascination with military vehicles started as a child when he started building plastic models of them. In college, he built his first remote control scale model tank. He obtained his first full-size military vehicle in 1975; a World War II-era M3 Scout Car.
29. It's a Bird!
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located in the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum, like one would assume, has a vast collection of everything that has to do with nature. Among other collections, the Natural History Museum has 620,000 specimens of birds.
Experts working at the museum explain the collection shows about 85% of birds on earth and is used to learn more about life, nature, and even airplane safety!
30. BRAIN BANK
The Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (HBTRC), established at McLean Hospital in 1978 and known as the Brain Bank, is a centralized resource for the collection and distribution of human brain specimens for brain research, and it's one of the biggest of it's kind.
It is estimated to house over 5000 specimens, stored, categorized and sometimes shipped to other investigators. Even though it's not in private hands, this collection is with no doubt both extremely bizarre and important.
31. Mini Collection
Barbara Hartsfield is the woman behind the world’s largest collection of tiny seats. She only started acquiring small chairs in the 1990s. In 2008, her 3,000-piece collection of seats, both miniature and doll-sized, Christmas ornaments, and salt and pepper shakers - was officially recognized as the world’s largest by Guinness World Records.
“People ask me which chair is my favorite all the time, and I almost want to say it’s like asking which one of your children do you like the best,” Hartsfield explained. “It’s almost impossible to choose.”
32. Face Towelette
Let’s talk about napkins. You may not think napkins are the most exciting object to discuss, but Martina Schellenberg of Schwieberdingen, Germany would certainly disagree with you.
At 125,866 napkins and growing, Martina has the largest collection of napkins in the world, all of which are sorted by theme and stored in boxes. We bet this collection makes your mom's drawer of napkins look a bit saner.
33. Sell Me This Pen
The trusty ballpoint pen. Loved around the world as everyone’s go-to writing implement, and somehow impossible to find just when you need it most. Maybe everyone just needs a friend like Angelika Unverhau, owner of 285,150 unique ballpoint pens.
Her collection, representing 148 different countries, is actually larger than this, but only unique pens have been counted for the purposes of the record books. So, if you’re ever looking for a spare, give your new best friend Angelika a call.
34. GIVING BOOTLEGGERS THE BOOT
José Roberto "Zero" Alves Freitas is a Brazilian businessman whose record collection of over eight million discs is said to be the largest in existence. In addition, he has more than 100,000 compact discs.
Zero was inspired to begin collecting by his parents, who both had collections of hundreds of records. He soon surpassed their collection, having over 3,000 records by the time he left high school, this quickly grew and he had collected around 30,000 records by the time he reached 30.
35. Slinky Madness
While fidget spinners may be today’s toy of choice, Susan Suazo prefers a Slinky for absent-minded diversion. What began as a hobby has matured into a serious pursuit that has led to an impressive collection of 1,054 Slinkys.
Suazo’s collection encompasses a range of sizes and colors, from glow-in-the-dark neon to gold wire. While she acknowledges that her fascination is a little strange, she’s at peace with that.
36. American Plastic
Where most people see a piece of plastic that allows them to drink coffee on the go, Louise Harpman and Scott Specht see a representation of a cultural shift in America.
While they don’t consider themselves to be obsessive collectors, they do acknowledge their fascination with coffee lid design. They have picked up more than 550 different lids while grabbing a cup of joe, and they store their collection in a special container under Harpman’s bed.
37. A Big Collection With Extra Weirdness, Please
Brooklyn apartments are known for their modest size, but square footage hasn't stopped Scott Wiener from amassing a wealth of pizza boxes. He has more than 600 unique boxes neatly broken down and stacked inside his small apartment.
His collection comes from 42 different countries, a feat he has managed with the help of fans who send boxes from their favorite pizzerias. The pizza aficionado has written a book about pizza box design.
38. The Scottish Collection
Here's a household where celebrations could get a bit loud: Danny Fleming from Grimsby, Lincolnshire holds the title for owning the largest collection of bagpipes. He began collecting the musical instruments as a 10-year-old when he was taking lessons, and he's now amassed 105 sets.
His vast £130,000 collection features models that date from as long ago as 1918 and includes a set of pipes set in gold, silver, and ivory worth more than £12,000. Sounds to us like a lot of money for a pretty irritating sound, but that's just me.
39. A Sh*#% Collection
George Frandsen is basically the Indiana Jones of poop. He’s gotten his hands on 1277 samples of coprolite (the scientific name for fossilized feces). His collection was certified as a world record-breaker in August 2016, and in October, he lent it to the South Florida Museum for a year-long exhibition.
Visitors to the museum can feast their eyes on coprolite from eight different countries, including a 4 pound, 3.5-ounce prehistoric crocodile turd affectionately named “Precious.”
40. BARF!
Some people in this list are collecting napkins, others are interested in traffic cones... But marketing and investment consultant Niek Vermeulen of the Netherlands built up the world's largest collection of airsickness bags with over 3,700 bags from over 800 different airlines and another 10,000 spare bags. He holds the Guinness world record since 1986.
Niek began collecting airsickness bags when he and a friend made a bet to see who could accumulate the most of anyone item and set a world record. One day, Niek was using a sickbag to scribble down expenses during a flight and the idea for his collection was born.