World’s Largest Snow Globe Collection is a Year-Round Winter Wonderland
Guinness World Records visited Josef Kardinal and his snow globe collection, which set a record for the world’s largest in 2002 and still holds that record as it keeps growing.
Josef Kardinal of Nuremberg, Germany, first made the Guinness World Records in 2002 for the largest collection of snow globes. At the time, the official count was 6,100 snow globes. But that’s not enough for such a dedicated collector. He is still adding to his collection, and when Guinness World Records Adjudicator Emma Salt visited his home this year, he held the record with 11,017 snow globes.
Kardinal’s collection started with a single snow globe as a gift in 1984. He liked it, so friends kept giving him more. Then Kardinal and his wife started looking for snow globes as souvenirs when they travelled. His collection, as Salt described it, snowballed.
In a video of Salt’s visit, Kardinal walked through the room in his home dedicated to his collection. He displays his snow globes on shelves, grouped by theme.
The collection shows plenty of variety among snow globe designs. Even in simple shapes, there are bases with different materials or textures; Salt exclaimed over one with a furry base. Some contain glitter instead of plain white snow. There are snow globes shaped like alarm clocks, ships, or teacups. A snow globe shaped like a lantern stands on a tall pole for a base, making it the size of a floor lamp.
One snow globe that Kardinal makes a point of showing off is shaped like a helicopter; he demonstrates how its windows light up and its propeller spins. Another is a Coca-Cola telephone, shaped like a cradle telephone with the “globes” in the handset. It lights up, too, and apparently functions as a phone.
Kardinal’s oldest snow globe dates to 1889 and comes from France, featuring a miniature Eiffel Tower inside and a banner reading “Souvenir de Paris” on the base. He has a few snow globes that are clear products of more recent history, namely, the COVID-19 pandemic, like rolls of toilet paper and a snowman wearing a mask.
Kardinal keeps up with pop culture, too. He has a Star Wars snow globe that captures a lightsaber duel. A Taylor Swift snow globe scatters tiny pages of song lyrics instead of snow, replicating an effect from one of the pop star’s music videos. On video with Guinness World Records, he opened up his latest acquisition, a snow globe of the Hogwarts Express from the Harry Potter series.
The snow globes are “encapsulate a perfect world” for Kardinal, and he continues to look for examples new to him. That doesn’t mean he’s a fan of snow in real life, though. He prefers warm, sunny weather, and likes snow to stay inside the globe.
You may also like:
