Collecting Craze

Over-eager collecting -- it can come about through a variety of ways. Often it involves someone with a lot of time on their hands, a home shopping channel and a telephone. Before long, the packages start to arrive, giving the recipient a temporary frisson of excitement that quickly wears off. Soon enough, another order's been placed. It can go downhill from here.

The recent case of a 71-year-old man who had a need to stockpile likely didn't involve TV shopping -- this man's primary passion was guns.

The estate lawyer sent out to look at the man's apartment in the western city of Aachen after his death found 71 rifles, revolvers, and pistols along with other weapons he had built himself.

"There were 71 guns -- one for each year of his life," said police spokesman Paul Kemen. "He also had 41 cases of ammunition and five walking sticks fitted with retractable blades."

The man did not have a permit to own weapons, and retractable blades are illegal in Germany.

Although guns were a special love, the collector didn't limit himself to just weapons. According to neighbors, the man, who lived alone, collected everything from garden tools to watches.

"The house was stuffed to the rafters," Heiner Hautermans, a reporter at the

Aachener Nachrichten newspaper, told Reuters. "By the end, the neighbors said he had to sleep in a hotel sometimes because there was no more room."