25 Bizarre Collections That’ll Make You Wonder About Humanity

Angelika Unverhau from Dinslaken, Germany, has collected more than 220,000 ball-point pens (excluding duplicates) from 146 countries. She has been collecting unusual pens since childhood, but decided to take her hobby more seriously in 1990. She founded a club for ball-point pen collectors who meet twice a year to trade pens.

Myrtle Young started collecting potato chips while working as a potato chip inspector for Seyfert Foods in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1987 when she saved a chip that looked like a face from the conveyor belt. From that moment, she started selecting chips which reminded her of something or someone. At the time of her death in August 2014, she was said to have between 250 and 300 chips in her collection.

World Record of ‘largest collection of empty tubes of toothpaste’ has been achieved by Ronan Jordan from New York, US. In October, 2013; Mr. Jordan’s collection had 3750 empty tubes of toothpaste of various companies from all over the world.

Creepy as it sounds, there are thousands of people out there who stockpile murderobilia, collectibles that relate to murderers and violent psychopaths. From cars to clothes via keepsakes, diaries and even artwork doodled by some of the most deadly people ever to grace society – murderobilia comes in all manner of forms. As you might expect, the idea of collecting killers’ possessions has courted controversy and campaigners in the US are currently working to outlaw the auction of such items.

The largest collection of Super Mario memorabilia contains 5,441 individual, unique items and belongs to Mitsugu Kikai from Japan. It was counted in Tokyo, in July 2010.

Museum of burnt food was founded in the late 1980’s by Deborah Henson-Conant and recently relocated to Arlington, Massachusetts. The exhibit wings of the Museum house more than 49,000 scorched, singed, seared, and charred items of staggering diversity, ranging from carbonized elephants, venison, pork, fish and poultry to thrice-baked potatoes.

Herbert Chavez from Calamba Laguna, Philippines, can boast of a superman memorabilia collection with almost 1300 items. Herbert has even undergone a series of cosmetic surgeries for his nose, cheeks, lips and chin down to his thighs and even his skin color to look more like his idol.

Jordan Michael Geller is an avid sneaker fan and reportedly owns the largest sneaker collection in the world, with around 2,500 pairs. Not surprisingly, he is also a fan of the most famous Jordan of them all, Michael Jordan. Geller is featured in the 2013 Guinness Book of World Records for having the largest private collection of shoes.

Celine Cornet has a collection of 2,200 pieces of panda collectables, in her house in Haccourt, Belgium. Celine and her husband Andre started their collection in 1978 when he gave her a panda souvenir he bought in Italy. Celine said she is planning to donate all her pandas to ill children when she passes away.

Lisa Courtney from the UK is a real Pokemon fanatic. Lisa has been collecting Pokemon toys since 1997, and has almost 15,000 of them. Her collection includes items from the UK, USA, France and of course Japan.

Graham Barker from Perth, Australia is the owner of what is often considered the most bizarre collection ever. He started to collect the weird memorabilia when he noticed his own navel lint one night and became curious about how much fluff a person produces. Each night, he takes whatever he can find in his belly button and stores it in a jar, bought specifically for this purpose. At the end of each year, he adds the lint to his grand collection. In the 26 years that he has been collecting his own fluff, he has managed to fill three glass jars, and he is already working on his fourth.

Boeing scientist Chris Reid’s has the largest Super Soaker water guns collection in the world. The Super Soaker water gun was first introduced in 1989 and quickly out-powered other water guns of its time. Reid has about 340 Super Soakers overall, his very first water gun was autographed by Super Soaker inventor Lonnie Johnson.

The Asphalt Museum is actually a real museum in Sacramento, California. It was founded in 1991 by two Colorado State University students. The collection consists of asphalt “samples” from Route 66, Highway 1 and the ancient Roman road Appian Way as well as not-so-famous roads.

Sergei Frolov has a fantastic collection of over 150 Soviet-made calculators, as well as vintage computers, watches and slide rules. Frolov is even trying to raise enough money to open a Soviet vintage electronics museum.

Vic Clinco from Phoenix, Arizona, owns what is thought to be the world’s largest hot sauce collection. His amazing 6,000 bottle collection from around the world includes a rare bottle of “Blair’s 16 Million Reserve,” the hottest sauce on the planet.

Sigurdur Hjartarson, a former teacher from Iceland, has a strange hobby of collecting penises from different types of species. The collection has a total of almost 300 penises from different species of animals including whales, seals or land mammals. Hjartarson is adamant that his museum is a scientific and cultural undertaking about which there’s no reason to be squeamish, and that there’s nothing erotic or pornographic about it.

Barbie dolls are not that unusual of a memorabilia for little girls, but for a grown man is a different story. 33-year-old Jian Yang from Singapore has in his house a collection of over 6000 Barbie dolls. Although Yang has a pretty massive collection, the 2013 edition of Guinness World Records gives the award for the largest Barbie doll collection to Germany’s Bettina Dorfmann, who owns something like 15,000 Barbies.

Barney Smith, a retired master plumber from Texas, has an unusual choice of art medium: toilet seats. For the past 30 years, Barney has created over 700 artistically decorated toilet seat lids. In 1992, he even opened his own Toilet Seat Art Museum that now hosts about 1000 toilet seat lids.

Barry Chappell started collecting chewing gum while on an international flight. Lacking a proper place to dispose of the gum, he held it in his hand and twirled it around into a little ball; an action that would give birth to an unusual idea. Six years and 95,200 piece of gum later, Barry was a non-smoking superstar. He created a gigantic piece of chewed gum that weighs 175 pounds.

One day, Matt Malgram bought 2 hamburgers from a popular fast food joint. He ate one, and stored the other. After a year, he discovered that it smelt and tasted exactly the same. Fascinated, he began a hamburger collection, labeling them by year.

Joseph W. Lauher has the largest collection of handcuffs (with focus on vintage ones), leg irons, nippers, and thumb-cuffs on the web.

Eric Ducharme from Florida has been fascinated with mermaids since he was a child. At the age of 16, he put on his first show while swimming as the mermaid prince in Weeki Wachee Springs’ Little Mermaid show in 2006. Today, except for collecting the tales, Ducharme also runs his own business called Mertailor that manufactures custom-made tails.

The Air Sickness Bags Virtual Museum is a collection of about 2,300 air sickness bags collected by museum curator Steven J. Silberberg. The museum is entirely online, with photographs of the various air sickness bags; however, the actual collection is stored at Silberberg’s residence. In addition to airplane air sickness bags, the website also has a collection of bus sickness, sea sickness, and even space sickness bags.

Pam Barker from Leeds, Maine, is a huge fan of anything owl. In 2006, she set the Guinness World Record with her collection of over 18,000 owl memorabilia. A collection that includes owls printed on towels, owl necklaces, owl statues, owl T-shirts, owl greeting cards, plush owls, and more.

Charlotte Lee from Seattle, Washington, is the Guinness World Record holder for her 5,631 rubber ducks as of 2011. She began her collection in 1996, and is still on the hunt.

If you these bizarre collections are shocking, you should check out these 25 Most Bizarre Museums From Around The World.