Despite being located over 120 miles from Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, MO, via I-70, Manhattan, KS, may be home to the world’s largest collection of Kansas City Chiefs-related memorabilia.
Curt Herrman, Chiefs super-fan and owner of the potentially record-breaking collection, began building his “Chiefseum,” as he puts it, when he was just eight-years old.
Over 50 years and 553 pieces of Chiefs-related memorabilia later, Herrman, who is also a Manhattan-Ogden school-board member, is potentially on the verge of holding his own spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
“I think getting the world record would make it kind of make me feel like it’s been worthwhile,” Herrman said.
The collection covers just about every wall and fills just about every shelf in the basement of Herrman’s home and is enough to take just about anyone’s breath away, Chiefs fan or not.
“A lot of times I’ll kind of think to myself, ‘okay, I’ve got enough, I need to slow down because I’m running out of space and I have to make more room,'” Herrman said. “And then I’ll happen to be driving through a small town and there’s a little antique store. I’ll pull in and there will be three or four things in there that I just can’t live without.”
Through antique-store adventures, bidding wars on eBay, efforts to get items signed by former Chiefs players and determination to keep items gifted to him by friends and family, Herrman has built up quite the variety of items.
One wall is covered in items related to Chiefs-legend Derrick Thomas, while other and shelves are filled with signed jerseys, old newspaper clippings, posters, model cars, player figurines and much more.
Among the more valuable items in the collection is an old Christmas card signed by, among others, Lamar Hunt, former Chiefs owner and co-founder of the American Football League (now known as the American Football Conference).
The items in Herrman’s “Chiefseum” also span much of the Kansas City Chief’s history, with one of the oldest items dating back to when the team was located in Dallas, Texas, and known as the Texans.
If Herrman’s collection is verified by the Guinness Book of World Records, which he says could happen later this month, it could also become the largest collection of sports-related memorabilia in the world.
Going forward, Herrman hopes his collection will build enough attention that he will get an in-person meeting with a Kansas City Chiefs player.
“My dream is, if I get the world record and the news gets around, that someone like Patrick Mahomes might say ‘I’d love to see that collection,'” Herrman said.
Until then, Herrman plans to continue watching Chiefs games on his flat-screen T.V. with friends and family in a room that is home to a sports-memorabilia collection few can rival.
