 Click on picture to enlarge | For the 25th time, Guinness World Records has anointed Dutch baggist Niek Vermeulen as holder of the world's largest collection of barfbags. A row in a table of "classic collections" on page 142 of the 2011 edition of the Guinness annual tome lists Niek as owner of 6,016 bags. That figure was verified back in January 2010, so presumably it has now swollen further. Niek has now bumped rival Hamburg-based baggist Oliver Conradi from the top spot in bagophily.com's bagometer. The web version of the Guinness records still has Niek's old total of 5,469 bags, along with a must-see shot of the Man Himself reposing on a bed of bags. Clearly eager to maintain his exalted position on top of the pile, Niek exhorts other collectors to include only "optically different" bags bearing an airline logo or name in their bagometer counts. Niek's numbers pale in comparison to the 9,638 bells, 13,627 coffee pots, and 103,009 bookmarks amassed by other kleptomaniacs. Anyone with any idea of how to count over 100,000 bookmarks, please let me know. |