When it comes to celebrating the holiday season, Josef Kardinal can get a bit obsessive.

The German man has ramped up his Christmas spirits by owning more than 11,000 snow globes — the largest collection in the world.

Kardinal first earned his Guinness World Record back in 2002 when he owned a mere 6,100 of them — and kept on amassing the winter treasures, which have since grown to 11,017.

World’s Largest Snow Globe Collection | Guinness World Records

His collection began in 1984, and ranges from eccentric pieces like a Harley-Davidson-themed knick-knack that makes a motorcycle sound as it moves, to another that holds a replica of the Titanic that appears to be sinking.

“I love the romance of snow globes and how beautiful they are when you shake them up and the snow falls down,” Cardinal, who keeps the winter wonderlands in the basement of his Nuremberg home, told the record book.

Josef Kardinal of Germany began amassing the winter treasures in 1984. YouTube/Guinness World Records

“People love snow globes as they encapsulate a perfect world. Obviously one that is not realistic and that is why we gravitate towards them.”

The oldest one in his collection was made in 1889 in Paris with an Eiffel Tower inside, and his smallest is the size of a fingernail and doubles as a wearable pin.


The record-breaking collector keeps them all in his basement in Nuremberg. GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS / SWNS

He also has other novelties he acquired during the COVID-19 pandemic — one with a roll of toilet paper inside and another with a snowman wearing a mask.

No snow globe collection is complete without one paying homage to Taylor Swift, and Kardinal has one that holds a mini typewriter from her 2024 album “The Tortured Poets Department” — and when it’s shaken, pages with her lyrics swirl around inside.

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