So, did Neil break the World Record and pass go?

What an exciting adventure Safestore have been a part of.  It all started early on Sunday the 26^th of June at a DHL depot near Heathrow.  Neil Scallan, a Monopoly addict, began moving his collection of over 2,700 Monopoly boards to our Crawley store where the mammoth task of cataloguing each game was to begin.  Why, you may ask, was he cataloguing them?  To win the Guinness World Record for the largest number of individual Monopoly Sets of course!

‘Neil’s obsession with collecting Monopoly boards only started 10 years ago when he was on holiday.  He wanted to buy a souvenir that reminded him of his holiday but a keyring or a fridge magnet was too predictable.  So instead, he opted for a Monopoly board and that’s where it all began’.
Upon arriving at Safestore in Crawley, the games were forklifted off the DHL lorry on a total of 23 pallets; a rather impressive stash!  The games were then moved into a 1,000 square foot storage unit where each one had to be individually photographed and their unique numbers documented, to ensure there wasn’t any duplicates. 

  Neil had rallied a group of friends to help with this mammoth task including; Didier from Yolo Games (Belgium), Matthew from World of Monopoly, Nimi, Bestman Games (Nigeria) and our store staff, some of whom came in on their day off.

The cataloguing went on for a couple of days and late into the night on Tuesday.  The One Show, BBC, sponsored the attempt and arranged for the Guinness World Record team to attend on the day.  It was a fabulous day and Gyles Brandreth, a One Show presenter who is also the former European Monopoly champion (and whose parents met over a game of Monopoly), was on site to watch the attempt.  There was a classic roadster on site with an eccentric driver, a Scottie Dog, and we made a mad dash to the local DIY store to buy a wheelbarrow. 


Best of all, however, was Neil’s incredible record which came in at a whopping 1677 unique sets!  The previous record of only 500 has a long way to go in order to beat Neil – so congratulations from the Safestore team for taking collections to a whole other level, Neil!



More information about Neil and his Collection can be found here:

• Taking a Chance on Neil, the Monopoly Collector
• Stuff is Great - Monopoly Man