Aaron Bartholmey of Des Moines, Iowa own a lot of pencils — enough, in fact, to handily beat the existing Guinness record of around 24,000.
“Numbers-wise, I knew I could beat the record,” Bartholmey tells KCCI. However, he needed to sit down and get an official tally, which he did with the whole community watching and counting along.
“It was a lot of work put into getting that event together and doing the whole count. So it’s really exciting,” he shares.
It paid off, as his 69,255 pencils — which include everything from local business advertisements, a 100-year-old pencil, and even one with a high school basketball schedule — easily captured the record.
Aaron’s hobby started after a flea market visit with his grandpa, and despite rewriting the record books, he’s still on the hunt for more. not through, though — he says he already hunting for more.
‘It’s pretty unbelievable to know I hold that title and officially have the largest collection in the world!’ Bartholmey wrote in a statement obtained by KCCI.