After setting a world record in 2020 for the largest collection of LEGOS\ Star Wars interlocking plastic brick sets and being listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, Matthew Hines is ready to create a new one.
The Evans resident broke the record of 620 Star Wars sets by owning 645 sets. Some are put together in a room in his home, but others are still in their original packaging. Some are stored in a closet.
[adrotate banner=”19″]
“When COVID hit, I was bored,” said Hines who has amassed another 100 sets since the beginning of the pandemic. He plans to resubmit the required proof to make a new record.
Although Hines played with LEGOS as a child, he didn’t start collecting them until he was an adult. In 1999, Hines was dating his now wife, and she bought a set for him and her son to build together. It snowballed from there, and she’s been supportive of his habit ever since.
Some of his items were readily available to purchase in stores. Others are more exclusive. He has some sets that are one of 100 made. Some came from comic conventions.
But he knows there are at least eight sets he’ll probably never own. Only a few of them were made, and they would cost thousands of dollars to buy from another collector, he said.
The Star Wars LEGOS aren’t the only ones Hines owns.
He estimates that he has about 1,800 sets and more than 1 million individual bricks, and he wants to put some of the others to good use. He’s in the process of forming a non-profit called Brix Work, which would help people with traumatic brain injury and other conditions. LEGOS have been used in occupational therapy.
“They helped me with my TBI,” said the Army retiree and former paratrooper who served multiple tours in the Middle East.
Hines said he’s seen the benefits in himself and in others. He knows of a woman employed at his workplace who has a family member with a traumatic brain injury. Hines said she told him that her family member benefitted from borrowing some of his LEGO sets.
“He would build something and then give it back. She’d send me pictures, and say, ‘He’s been doing this for over two hours. He can’t do anything for longer than 30 minutes,’” he said.
Hines has filled out the legal paperwork and is waiting for approval for his non-profit status.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com
[adrotate banner=”41″]
