Man Spends More than Half His Life Collecting Belly Button Lint

Collecting navel lint is probably not the kind of hobby you want to bring up in a conversation, but that hasn’t stopped a 45-year-old librarian from collecting his own belly button fluff, for the last 26 years.

Graham Barker, from Perth, Australia started his bizarre collection when he noticed his own navel lint, one night, and became curious about how much fluff a person produces. The only way to answer his own question was to monitor his own belly button, and collect the lint. Contrary to what most people believe when they hear about his weird habit, Graham isn’t obsessed with lint, nor does he spend most of his time checking his navel. He is only driven by curiosity, and dedicates a mere ten seconds a day to collecting the fluff, right before stepping into the shower.

The amount of fluff he finds in his navel every night depends on the type of clothes he’s been wearing that day, but he has noticed thermal underwear is the most productive. Each night, he takes whatever he can find in his belly button and stores it in a clay jar, bought specifically for collecting lint. At the end of each year, he ads the lint to his grand collection. In the 26 years that he has been collecting his own fluff, he managed to fill three glass jars, and he is already working on his fourth. Believe it or not, his extensive collection weighs just 22 grams.

Graham Barker admits that lint, as a raw material, is worthless, but as part of an impressive collection it gains both curiosity and financial value. After being acknowledged by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest collection of navel lint, his three jars of fluff were acquired by a museum, for an undisclosed sum. When they see the belly button lint collection, most visitors have a positive reaction, but there are still those who find it disgusting or simply stupid.

Graham only plans to stop collecting navel lint when he is incapable of doing so anymore, but he reckons he’ll fill up five more jars before then, thus making sure his record doesn’t get beat any time soon.

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Flight Attendant Puts Together Impressive Collection of Airline Spoons

Dieter Kapsch, a 38-year-old Austrian flight attendant has managed to collect 1,760 airplane spoons from 447 airlines.

The young flight attendant started gathering airplane spoons 13 years ago, after going on a holiday in Spain, with his sister Gunda. While they were flying towards their destination, she suggested they take one of the spoons, as it may prove useful on their vacation. After returning home, he ended up with the spoon, and every time he used it, it reminded him of his nice time in Spain. From there on he decided to collect as many airline spoons as possible, and he stayed true to his goal.

Dietrich says his family and friends have been very supportive and have added to it every time they got the opportunity. He is now the proud owner of 1,760 different airline spoons, some dating back to the 1920s and 1930s, when companies like Pan Am were still around. While some of his spoons are of unknown origin, he relies on the Internet to solve the mystery of his collectibles. Check out his Flickr stream and see if you can recognize any of the logos from his yet untraceable spoons.

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The World’s Biggest E.T. Fan

With thousands of E.T. collectibles, some dating back to 1982, Nick Gjoka can proudly call himself the world’s biggest E.T. fan.

In 1982, when he was just 4 years old, Nick’s mother took him to see E.T. He doesn’t even remember that, but he does know that’s when he unboxed his first E.T. doll, at his grandfather’s house. He kept receiving all kinds of E.T. toys, and he would ask his parent’s to buy them whenever he saw them in stores, but it wasn’t until his teen years that he began putting together an actual collection.

Nick’s parents are both collectors, so he has always been familiar with garage and yard sales. At the age of 22 he was already looking on eBay, going to various sales and buying everything related to his favorite extraterrestrial. His friends and family realized his passion and started helping him in his quest of creating the world’s largest E.T. memorabilia collection.

In 2002, the re-release of the movie brought with it new E.T. collectibles that got Nick Gjoka interested in collecting. Later that year he visited Universal Studious, from where he returned with $300 worth of E.T. memorabilia. His collection grew two, maybe three times in only a few months time.

Nick Gjoka and his amazing collection were featured on VH1’s hit show Totally Obsessed, and he became known all around the US. Nowadays, Nick isn’t hunting for E.T. collectibles as he once did, because he hasn’t got the time or space anymore, but he says he’s always interested in new additions to his sizable collection.

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