Collections are brilliant things, aren’t they? What’s particularly brilliant is that for every stamp or teddy bear collection there is always – always – someone collecting something, if not slightly odd, then completely bonkers. Astonishingly nearly 70% of British adults consider themselves to be collectors of some sort, but nowhere near that number have their collections out on display. Some, however, most assuredly do, and isn’t it always a tiny bit wonderful to see those collections in their full glory? Here’s a selection of our favourites.

Royal family memorabilia

Whilst many would consider the idea of having a Wedgewood bust of Prince Charles in their home more than a little intimidating, for Margaret Hall, it’s par for the course, and just one of thousands of pieces of Royal Family memorabilia that she has accumulated – and stored – in her modest house over the past 40 years. She takes the task of keeping her collection up to date terribly seriously: “There’s loads of royal magazines that I read, so I get up at about 4.30am to keep up with it all,” she reveals.

Pez dispensers

Kelle Blyth, from Norfolk, describes her collection as an ‘army’, and as we’re pretty sure there hasn’t yet been a collective noun allocated for Pez dispensers, we think someone should make this official. Her own battalion of sweetie receptacles numbers more than 3,000, some of which date back to the 1950s. Impressive stuff.

Soap

While for most of us, soap is something that is bought and used (as per its function), not so for Carol Vaughn of Sutton Coldfield who started her lather-tastic collection back in 1991 and which – at the time of reporting by the Birmingham Mail in 2009 – had grown to more than 5,000 bars.

“I was given one shaped liked cheesecake… you don’t know whether to eat it”, the paper reported. We certainly hope she could tell the difference. As to niggling issue of ‘doesn’t she use them, to, y’know, wash?’ we can be reassured that while she “wouldn’t dream of actually using the soaps”, she did in fact ‘wash regularly’. Phew.

Sadly Carol passed away in 2011, leaving behind not only a fairly comprehensive soap collection, but – apparently – a sizeable number of plastic carrier bags also.

POKEMON

Welwyn Garden City can now add the honour of being home to the largest collection of Pokémon memorabilia to its other accolades, such as… um…. being the second Garden City and the former home to Shredded Wheat.

Lisa Courtney has been collecting those little critters since becoming besotted with them as a child, and had amassed a collection of 12,113 items when the Guinness Book of Records came a-counting in 2009. “There’s just something about collecting Pokemon that brings a smile to my face. There’s just a feeling of accomplishment when you finally get that last piece.” We can’t help but wonder how she’s reacted to that game this summer…

Nails

“There is a lot of interest in my display and I now have people donating nails to me from around the world,” says Richard Jones of Blackwood. Nope, he’s not talking about fingernails, but nails: the things you hit with a hammer. What’s lovely about this is that, although your initial (and very reasonable) response might be, WTF?, it quickly melts away when you see the care and love this pensioner has lavished on his rather unique collection.

Traffic cones

A few years ago, David Morgan was one of twelve men featured on a calendar for Britain’s Dullest Men. To lambast people for pursuing strange hobbies seems a bit harsh to us, but actually it seems to be a badge that’s held with a certain degree of honour. The Dull Men’s Club has its own (and, we must say, very witty) website, and a tagline that proclaims to ‘celebrate the ordinary’. We have to take slight issue with this bit: exactly how ordinary is it to collect traffic cones?

Mr Morgan has a collection of more than 500 traffic cones and SomersetLive reported that he “picked up one rarity, a 1980 Adapterform at an airport while on honeymoon on Corsica in 1988.” We don’t really know where to start here – so many questions running through our mind tanks! Suffice to say we’re sure that organizing parking at large family gatherings must be a doddle.

Gnomes

If you type ‘Ann Atkin’ into Google, the omnipotent search engine helpfully proffers a suggestion of ‘Ann Atkin gnome reserve’, which tells you perhaps all you need to know about our next selection.

It would be hard to compile a list of Eccentric British collections without including the humble gnome. The collection, in North Devon, is open to the public and the BBC helpfully reported that, “to make sure the gnomes don’t get scared by the invading humans, Ann provides visitors with optional gnome hats.” We’re not quite sure what to make of that, but as gnomes give at least one of us here at Boxman HQ quite a serious case of the heebie-jeebies, we don’t think anthropomorphizing them helps in the slightest.

Car tax discs

“I don’t think I’ve ever asked this before,” said a BBC news reporter during an interview, “but do you have a favourite car tax disc?” Of course the interviewee did. 12 year old Jude Currie is, it turns out, rather fond of the designs from the ’60s and ’70s, and is the proud owner of more than 12,000 tax discs. He must be about the only person in Britain lamenting the move to a digitised road tax system, but even that doesn’t seem to dampen his enthusiasm. Sounds like his parents are just relieved he’s moved on from his first obsession: hub caps.

Thermos flasks

Richard Hammerton gradually accumulated his collection of thermos flasks from charity shops and bric a brac stalls over many years and says, “I think they pass the ‘William Morris test’ of being both useful and beautiful”. We agree, Richard, and what’s more, they’ll knock 20p off your coffee in your nearest Seattle-based caffeination station if you bring one of those bad boys in. William Morris would be very proud.

Toy soldiers

Tim Barker is an actor who appeared in Calendar Girls as ‘the dull man’, and now – in a rather super twist of fate – he’s been labelled one of the 23 dullest men in Britain by The Telegraph, referencing his toy soldier collection. There are more than 50,000 items in this collection, which he’s been collecting since boyhood. Look how happy he is, though! No app in the world can surely match that?

If you need some help storing your own unique collection while you’re growing it to Guinness Book-sized proportions, Boxman can help. As London’s self-storage company with a difference, we’ll deliver empty boxes to your home, leave you to pack up in your own time, and return to collect them when you’re good and ready. You can keep track of everything digitally, leaving you more time to seek out the next best new addition to your collection.

Featured Image via Express