Guinness Honors World’s Largest Harry Potter Collection

Menahem Asher Silva Vargas with part of his Guinness World Record-holding Harry Potter memorabilia. Photo: Rebecca Blackwell, courtesy AP Photo.

The Guinness World Records has vetted a new record: the world’s largest collection of Harry Potter memorabilia, which belongs to Mexico City’s Menahem Asher Silva Vargas, reports the Associated Press.

The 37-year-old lawyer has dedicated two full rooms of his home to his “Potterabilia,” collected over a span of 14 years. That means Silva Vargas’s holdings predate the 2001 launch of the wildly popular eight installment Warner Brothers film franchise spawned by J.K. Rowling’s best selling young adult fantasy novels. The boy wizard is also the subject of his own theme park, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, which opened in 2010.

According to Guinness World Records officials, Silva Vargas’s collection weighs in at an astounding 3,097 pieces, smashing the old record of 807. The Potter trove includes the original books in a multitude of languages, trading cards, magic wands, Gryffindor scarves, Quidditch brooms, and toy figurines, among many other objects. Silva Vargas was presented with an official Guinness certificate recognizing the achievement on Monday.

Although the massive collection began unplanned, things quickly spiraled out of control. “My salary, my bonuses…it all ended up here,” Silva Vargas admitted to the AP, calling his obsession with all things Potter a blessing and a curse.


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