42-year-old Dave Mannix owns the world's biggest scratch ticket collection ever

Jan 13, 2014 22:01 GMT  ·  By

From 100,000 lottery tickets some must be sure winners, but their collector refuses to know, he just likes gathering them, and in no case would he scratch them. The British man might have been a millionaire several times, but he will never know because that was not his point, he just had a passion for collecting stuff.

The 42-year-old man used to collect phone cards, but after the mobile phone industry put the old phones to shame, he began looking for a new passion. Dave Mannix started by gathering almost every scratch card UK's National Lottery released.

In the 20 years invested in collecting lottery tickets, Dave spent more than $131,800 on buying them and also had several items donated to him by retailers wanting to contribute to his collection. He stores all of his cards in one room in his home and even if most of them are expired, the man takes big pride in his collection.

“I've got a designated room in my house where I keep them all in boxes so I know exactly which ones are where,” the lottery ticket hoarder says, according to Daily Mail. Suffering from severe arthritis, the stay-at-home man dedicated all of his time into his extensive collection, despite his partner's nagging.

After half a lifetime of collecting scratch tickets, Dave is now willing to sell his work to another passionate hoarder who would take it even further and add more unique pieces to it. He started the collection when he received 400 items from a friend, he continued by asking retailers to donate the used tickets and adding them to what he already had.

Despite his constant struggle to have all of the National Lottery's tickets, he is still missing one important piece, the 1994 first Christmas scratch card, that somehow avoided him. “Apart from one I know of, I'm pretty sure I've managed to get hold of all the cards ever made and I've spent around $131,800 in doing so,” the collector says, according to Daily Mail.

His partner Sue is not that passionate about his collection and asked him several times to get rid of them. Finally taking her advice, Dave is now looking to sell his entire and intact collection, and hopes that the new owner will scratch the cards to reveal some incredible winnings.