Business Card Collector: Nerdy Or Kinda Awesome?

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I’m not the type of cat who’s going to bust on people because they have weird hobbies. I totally get them — my mother-in-law collects Santas, my mom collects statues of cows, my wife collects handbags (don’t even get me started). So, when I came across Bob Zeigler of Minot, North Dakota and his collection, I wasn’t sure to blow the nerd alarm or if it’s kinda cool. See, Bob collects business cards — of people with the last name Smith.

Bob checks the paper every day, and when he comes across a new Smith, he writes them a letter asking them to send back a business card. He’s sent out over 2000 letters and gotten cards from over 1000 people in all 50 states and seven different countries. After Bob retired from the Air Force, he read about a collector of business cards. That person had thousands, but Bob decided to narrow his collection a bit — he chose Smith, because they’d be the easiest to collect. (Smith is the most common last name in the U.S.)

There are some rules: he only finds Smiths in newspapers or magazines (“Googling Smiths feels like cheating.”). He also doesn’t collect cards with Smith in the name, so Smith & Wesson and Aerosmith are out.

So…what’s your odd collection?

(via The Wall Street Journal)