PRESTON – Susan West has a heart of gold.
She also has a heart of ceramics, crystal, plastic, wax and even chocolate. As a matter of fact, the Preston woman’s heart shaped containers is the largest collection in the world.
“My granddaughter, Ava Valcarcie, brought a friend over to see my collection. She said we ought to submit my collection of heart-shaped boxes to the Guinness World Records,” West said. “We made contact and they told us what we need to do.”
They told her to document everything where and when she collected the 1,560 heart shaped boxes and sent everything to them.
So that’s what she did.
Susan and her husband Ralph and four other family members and friends took videos and still pictures of every heart-shaped box she collected over 40 years. The documenting process took about 10 hours.
“We had to take a single picture of every item,” West said. “Then we put them in groups on tables and photographed them again.”
They submitted everything, including the written documentation to the Guinness people verifying her claim of the most heart-shaped boxes in February 2024. She has a certificate from the organization as proof she has the most heart-shaped containers in the world.
“I used to drive across the country for work,” Ralph said. “We would stop at places along the way and find heart-shaped stuff along the way.”
They went to IKEA once and found some curio cabinets that fit into their living room, bought six of them and added shelves to display the collected treasures. The cabinets are lined from ceiling to floor with her collectables filling the north wall of the room. The Wests also have a three windowed coffee table with a shelf where they have more displayed. And there are some of the new ones on top of the table.
“People just started bringing them to me when they found out I was colleting them,” she said. “Our friends Phil and Sherri Cromwell travel a lot and would bring me some from their travels.”
She has some heart-shaped boxes the size of a thumbnail and some as large as a cookie jar.
“These little ones go on a charm bracelet, and I have one that looks like it has a mouse hole in the side of it and when you open it up there is a mouse in it,” West said. “I have one made out of wax and one made out of wood from Arizona.”
Once when they were visiting the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California and found a heart shape and were able to purchase it. She has a ceramic heart-shaped box made by a granddaughter. There are heart-shaped boxes from all over the world in her collection.
“One thing about being listed in the Guinness World Records, is when I’m gone my whole collection will go to their museum,” West said. “There won’t be any fighting over any of the heart-shaped boxes.”
The boxes will be put in a place for the whole world to see with Susan West’s name from Preston, Idaho on display.