A New Champion

Capt. Kyle Ugone's LEGO Collection

So, according to a pair of articles, US Marine Captain Kyle Ugone has set a new LEGO world record.  But, not to diminish his collection, there is a catch!

The stipulation is that his collection is the largest of different assembled LEGO sets - not necessarily the largest collection of actual LEGO pieces.  The grand total is an astounding 1091 unique sets (the captain's collection unofficially stands at over 1200 sets, but some were not able to recognized by the Guinness authorities due to technical issues - such as lack of the original instructions to mark the set as 'complete').

Capt. Ugone has been collecting since he was a small child, and still has the first set he received when he was five - a windmill set that is still assembled.

I have often contemplated a similar feat as Captain Ugone - to recreate all of my old sets, and wondered how much space I would require to re-assemble all of my kits (let alone the question of whether or not I still had all of the required pieces!).  I remember being a child and playing with LEGO at a friends house - with his mother encouraging us to recreate sets from years past with the old instructions, while we much preferred to create our own constructions using our imagination. Perhaps she felt that our builds were too primitive?

I have a feeling that now that this record has been claimed, though, that there will be someone out there with a larger collection waiting to challenge for the crown.  This could be the beginning of a wonderful series of massive collection showdowns!