If you get into the Guinness Book of Records, does it make whatever you are collecting seem legitimate? There’s a headline of a 22-year-old comic book fan from Indiana has a Guinness World record for her collection of 2,318 items related to the Joker.
The picture of her shows a very neat display of stuff. And isn’t it stuff! Action figures tall and small, little bottles, toys, bicycles, shoes, all manner of stuff. The video shows her with her collection HERE,
To get a Guinness Record, she had to measure and document each item and five expert witnesses had to oversee the process. That means she’s gone a step towards archivist, librarian and archeologist work. But then it is hard to guess - she says her collection is always growing and she’s inspired to collect more. She plans on trying to turn her collection into a museum.
The extreme neatness of the collection must be a major distinction compared to the disorder known as hoarding. She’s out pursuing more items for her collection while a hoarder can’t seem to let things go and get rid of things. Her’s is an organized collection whereas hoarding is most often a large group of unrelated or marginally related objects, piled together. I don’t expect it costs much to hoard. There isn’t an outlay of money.
At the other end of the spectrum, the collector is likely investing quite a bit in the rare and unusual things that go into the collection. The value of a Joker comic is one of those things: “The Joker #1” from 2019 is valued at $2,760 in near-mint condition. There’s a Joker Comic Book Price Guide available. There’s a lot of sites offering to help value Joker items. There must be a lot of collectors out there.
And our picture today? Out of the archives from our railroad trip to Maine.
