The Guinness Book of World Records announced today that there's a new reigning champ for "Largest Collection of Comic Books." Bob Bretall, a 52 year old senior director at a telecommunications software company from Mission Viejo, California now holds this title. He is a private collector who has been collecting, non-stop, since July 1970.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
How big is his collection? Well, Bretall has 94,268 comics and none of any of those books counted are duplicates. Bretall began his collection at the age of 8 with AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #88, written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Romita Sr. He has not missed a month of collecting since then. He currently buys ore than 140 issues a month, which add to his collection. When asked about the value of his collection, Bretall had this to say in an interview with GWR:
I do not like to emphasize the monetary aspects of collecting comics. Too many stories about comics collecting focus on how many $$ everything is worth instead of the great stories and characters. I do not do it for the money and I don’t try to rationalize it as an investment and I’m not into it to make money, I have a regular job that pays the bills just fine. I’m never going to sell any of my comics, I’ll leave that to my kids when it becomes their inheritance to do with as they will (though I hope they’ll keep at least a few of them as a remembrance).
Bretall's goal is to add AMAZING FANTASY #15 to his collection, which is the first appearance of Spider-Man, his favorite character. Sadly the issue is a bit too pricey for him. Aside form that, Bretall is a big fan of SAGA so his love for books moves outside of just the super-hero genre. Bretall is excited to be a part of GWR
It is AWESOME to be in the Guinness World Records book. Getting this record is the most extraordinary thing that has happened to me in my collecting career so far. Whenever hear about a record like this, it’s very common for them to say “I know a guy who knows a guy who has WAY more comics”. My response is that records are made to be broken, and those people with more comics should be applying to Guinness to break my record! Just remember, you cannot count duplicate comics!!
Bretall will continue to collect and share his love of comics with the world on his site ComicSprectrum. What do you guys think of his collection and how large is yours?
