Oklahoma man boasts world's largest collection of bricks

Feb. 17 (UPI) -- An Oklahoma man's family surprised him with a Guinness World Record for his collection of 8,882 different bricks.

Clem Reinkemeyer, 87, was out of town when his daughter, Celia, and son-in-law, Dan Bisett, gathered a group of friends to count and document each item in his Tulsa brick barn.

Reinkemeyer returned home and was surprised with an official certificate for the world's largest collection of bricks.

"I got back in town and it was a big surprise, and I'm very happy to have this certificate," he told Guinness World Records.

Reinkemeyer's collection, which he has been amassing for 40 years, includes a Roman brick from A.D. 100, but most date from the last few hundred years.

"The break tide for making the bricks was about maybe 1870 to 1910," he said. "A special kind of brick like this has a certain clay that withstands heat, and everybody needed a fireplace."

He said some of his most valuable bricks are those with misspellings, such as one that reads "Tulsa" with a backward "s."

"I think Oklahoma has a history for the most misspelled bricks," he said. "I don't know why."

The collector said one of his favorites is a sidewalk brick made at a Washington facility located where the Pentagon now stands.

"There may be some of these under the Pentagon," he said. "But I think that this is one of a kind."

He said bricks interest him because of the history they hold.

"What appealed to me about bricks is, they have names and you can trace them back historically to places, and that always intrigued me. Its unusual, but I like it," he said.