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A Picture-Perfect Record

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The Associated Press

Published: January 18, 2009

ATHENS, Greece - The movie camera collection of retired postman Dimitris Pistiolas recently made it into the Guinness World Records - for the eighth time.

Pistiolas owns the world's largest private collection of movie cameras - 937 vintage models and projectors. They are neatly arranged, dusted and labeled in his tiny basement, where they cover every inch of wall.

Pistiolas, 78, started buying cameras at age 15 and never stopped. The basement museum is padlocked and visits are by invitation only.

"When I get a new camera, I feel like a little kid, like I've been given a Christmas present," he says. "The first thing I do is to restore it before I put it into the collection."

Ronald Grant, a director at the Cinema Museum in London, says it takes time and money to hunt such cameras down at fairs and auction rooms.

"There's a lot of investment there in time, and knowledge, and of course memory. Once you have a few hundred, then you have to remember, 'Have I got this one?'" Grant says. "You can't just buy these in a shop."

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