Tuesday, January 18, 2011 Largest collection of Beatles memorabilia: Rodolfo Vazquez set world record BUENOS AIRES, Argentina --Rodolfo Vazquez, a 53-year-old accountant, has turned his mammoth Beatles memorabilia collection into a museum in Buenos Aires; his collection now has more than 8,500 objects - setting the new world record for theLargest collection of Beatles memorabilia. Photo: Rodolfo Vazquezspeaks during an interview with The Associated Press at The Cavern club and new Beatles Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina. AP Photo(enlarge photo)
Rodolfo Vazquez has more than 8,500 objects, including a box of condoms bearing the names of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, a brick from the Cavern Club, a hunk of the stage from the Star Club in Hamburg, and certified copies of the band members' birth certificates.
Among his favorite items are 64 boxes of chewing gum in the form of Beatles records.
The previous Guinness world record
for theLargest collection of Beatles memorabiliaalso belongs to Rudolfo Renato Vazquez who had 5,612 individual items of Beatle-related memorabilia housed in the attic of his home in Buenos Aires back in 2001.
Guinness World Records also recognized The largest collection of Charlie's Angels memorabilia, which belongs to Jack Condon of Sherman Oaks, California, United States, with 1,460 non double items.
Vazquez himself organizes "Beatle Week" in Buenos Aires every year, where cover bands compete to be crowned the best imitators of the sixties super group. The winners win a trip to a music festival in Liverpool.
Although the Beatles never actually played in Argentina, Vazquez took a liking to the Fab Four at the age of ten, after purchasing their Rubber Soul album.
"With the song "In my life" I fell in love with the Beatles," he told The Associated Press.
From that point on, he collected anything he could find in Buenos Aires, and even started trading with other Beatles enthusuasts from other countries by mail, a practices which is still uses today.
He says he still buys and trades through the mail with people in Britain, Brazil and Japan.
Vazquez says that ultimately his goal is to rotate pieces of his collection every year in the museum so that other enthusiasts can enjoy as much of his collection as possible.
He says with everything he's collected over the years, the only thing is really missing is a handshake from Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney and Ringo StarrRingo Starr, the two members of the band still living.
"It is what would complete me and I would be the happiest collector on earth."
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