Records are made to be broken but Irene Sparks has just set one she hopes will last.
The North Otago woman counted her 21,321-tie collection in Oamaru today, surpassing Dr Derryl Ogden's 12-year-old Guinness World Record collection of 16,055 ties.
While Dr Ogden, of the United States, took 71 years to build his collection, Mrs Sparks set out four years ago to break the record when her collection numbered just a few hundred neck ties.
It was a lot of work, she said.
"It was overwhelming, it was awesome, it was fun," she said this afternoon. "Surreal is a good word for it."
To set the record for the world's largest tie collection, in a public count that lasted five-and-a-half hours, five witnesses oversaw her team of counters.
McDiarmid's Footwear owner Grant McDiarmid, Resene colour expert Les Smith, the former owner of the Oamaru Silk Centre Graeme Shekleton, fashion savvy local Kevin Black, and Parisian Neckwear managing director John Crompton, of Auckland, took the role of expert witnesses on the day.
And shortly after the announcement was made at 2.30pm that she had broken the record, the total was revised.
While the original tally was noted as 21,447 ties, when the record-keeping was double-checked -- after most of her supporters had left -- the witnesses knocked 126 ties off the total.
Guinness World Records requires the ties to be counted in one day, and Mrs Sparks recruited six volunteers and several "celebrity" counters to count the ties that she had sorted into patterns, colours, or themes, and bundled, and boxed.
No duplicate ties were allowed and so in the lead up to the day Mrs Sparks pared back her collection of roughly 23,000 ties by a couple of thousand to be sure there was no doubt among counters that they were seeing unique ties.
An Oamaru business installed CCTV cameras to help document the entire day because the counting was required to be filmed from start to finish.
Mrs Sparks' collection includes several one-of-a-kind handmade ties, top brands like Oscar de la Renta and Versace, and still more that are worth the $2 most op shops charge for a tie.
Mrs Sparks said she expected Guinness World Records to take several months to confirm her new record.
