It started with one. One became two, two became 10, and 30 years down the line a retired banker from Port Alfred is awaiting confirmation that his collection of 23,500 neck ties is enough to secure him a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Johan Nortier, 60, is so proud of his collection that he rents a space at his local shopping centre where he set up an exhibition showing some of his favourite, rarest and most valuable ties to the public.
“When I had between 50 and 100 ties I came home one night with a new one, and my wife said ‘please, not another tie’.
“Nowadays she works just as hard as me to collect, curate and sort every tie we add to the collection,” Nortier said, laughing.
Born and raised in Gqeberha, he started working at FNB and travelled all over the country as new positions opened up.
That is also how his tie collection slowly gained traction.
“I had to wear ties to work. Back then FNB had their own ties, and each province had a little logo unique to that province.
“Every division also had its own unique logo.
“I lived and worked in six different provinces, across various departments, so initially the collection grew itself.”
Outside work, Nortier also started collecting ties from other companies, his favourite sports teams, retail brands and various organisations.
He expanded his collection by buying out other smaller collectors, while some individual ties come with a special and unique back story.
One of his favourite ties is a Liverpool Football Club tie his daughter brought from the UK.
Another tie he acquired from a KFC employee in Mauritius, whom he had constantly bugged while waiting for his food, until the branch manager gave him the tie from his own neck just to get him out of the store.
He owns ties from about 50 different sporting codes, ties from the SAPS and SANDF, a wide variety of ties with comic-book characters, and even a few portraying rude images, just for laughs.
“I had about 20,000 ties when someone brought me a tie with the logo of a well-known cigarette brand.
“I was over the moon, because it was my first cigarette tie and it opened my eyes to a whole new category that I never knew existed.”
Nortier contacted Guinness World Records a few years ago, when he had about 9,000 ties.
He was told the record at the time was in the region of 14,000, but they were willing to give him an honourable mention in the next edition of the record book.
Nortier was not interested and told himself it was time to step up his game if he ever wanted to hold the real record.
In January, he started the process of sorting and curating all 23,500 ties — setting aside any duplicates and painstakingly categorising them to keep track of the entire collection.
He has been in touch with Guinness again and will now have to get two commissioners of oath, as well as two other witnesses, to count the ties with him and to verify his collection.
“I have a whole bunch of forms I need to fill in with the witnesses, which I will then send to Guinness for verification.
“If all goes well, I will receive my recognition as a world record holder later this year.”
And what happens when he gets the nod from Guinness?
“Well, then we start working towards 30,000 ties, then 40,000, and we keep going.
“A collection like this is not something you retire from,” Nortier said with a chuckle.
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