胡桃夹子是德国奥勒山地区的传统工艺品，因为德国浪漫主义作家霍夫曼创作的童话故事《胡桃夹子与老鼠国王》，这种玩偶幻化成了很多人心中的一个童话。

温州瑞安的李芳芳就是其中之一。从小到大的28年里，她找遍全世界，搜集、收藏胡桃夹子10127款。她因此甚至创下一项新的吉尼斯世界纪录。

世界各地收集胡桃夹子

1983年出生的李芳芳是家里的独生女。9岁那年的平安夜，她收到舅舅送的圣诞礼物：一个白胡子、大眼睛的木偶人，背着一个小麻袋，脚踩黑色高筒靴，头上戴着一顶小高帽。这就是胡桃夹子。不同于布偶洋娃娃，嘴巴会动的木质胡桃夹子让她一见钟情。

后来，她从书本上真正认识了这位漂洋过海而来的朋友。书上说，胡桃夹子能够守护家庭中的每一位成员，会对魔鬼和恶者露出牙齿，会给人带来好运、远离罪恶之神。

被赋予童话色彩的这个玩偶深得李芳芳的喜欢。从此之后，胡桃夹子一直陪伴她成长。从最初的喜爱，到后来的收藏，这一晃就是28年。

走上收藏之路后，只要外出旅游，李芳芳带回的就不仅仅是美景与回忆，还有各种各样的胡桃夹子。她每次外出旅游，多数时间都在寻找胡桃夹子，有时从国外带回胡桃夹子，运费远远高于胡桃夹子本身。为了能得到一款限量版或是绝版的胡桃夹子，她经常要与老板“打太极”才行。

2016年，她曾在美国待了40天，几乎每天都在“淘宝”——淘限量版、造型特殊的胡桃夹子。

在美国蒙特利半岛卡梅尔小镇上的一家小商店里，她看中了老板的“镇店之宝”——一款限量版胡桃夹子，老板并不打算售出。李芳芳前后三次光顾这家店，到店之后，她就开始跟老板“磨蹭”，讲述自己收藏胡桃夹子的故事。最终，李芳芳的诚意打动了老板。老板忍痛割爱将这款限量版胡桃夹子交到她的手中。此后，两人成为了很好的朋友。李芳芳创造了新吉尼斯世界纪录后，还收到这位远方朋友的祝贺。李芳芳也向他发出邀请，如果有机会来中国，她一定把她收藏的胡桃夹子展示给他看。

李芳芳说，上万件胡桃夹子，虽然来源并不都记得清清楚楚，但是每一件都是亲自收回来的，这其中有自己一路成长的印记。

在李芳芳的收藏中，最高的胡桃夹子有3米高，最矮的只有1.5厘米。上万款胡桃夹子，是李芳芳通过28年时间收集的，每款都不一样。她特别钟情其中一款“诺亚方舟”，这款胡桃夹子至今已有40多年历史，陈旧的模样尽是岁月留下的痕迹。能收到它，也是有着一个美丽的故事。

十多年前，李芳芳在罗马一家古董店发现这款“诺亚方舟”版胡桃夹子。聊天中，老板得知她是一个胡桃夹子收藏爱好者，难得遇到这样一位来自中国的知音，老板做出了一个意外的决定：将胡桃夹子赠送给李芳芳，并表示有机会要来中国看看李芳芳的藏品。

想组建一个胡桃夹子俱乐部

除了收藏，李芳芳还巧妙地将胡桃夹子与自己的事业结合起来。

2014年，李芳芳决定自己创业投身餐饮行业。她将文化与餐饮结合，构建“胡桃夹子”文化平台，将胡桃夹子文化加入到她的餐饮行业里。

2017年，在胡桃夹子诞生200周年之际，她在温州白鹿洲公园的年代美术馆里举办了一次以“胡桃王国与梦境之旅”为主题的大型展览，展示了7500个胡桃夹子人偶，从高达3米的巨型胡桃夹子，到几厘米高的小挂件，造型各异，就像一个童话故事里的梦幻世界，吸引了数万名参观者。

也就是在2017年，李芳芳萌生了挑战吉尼斯世界纪录的想法。

通过一年多的资料准备，她对照几十页的申请细则，一项一项落实。一个空旷场地上，她把上万款胡桃夹子收藏品全部摆放出来，进行归类和归档，并对283款限量版及绝版的胡桃夹子单独做了一张介绍清单，请第三方认证人和监督员现场清点数量及品种，再拍摄视频，保证每一款胡桃夹子尺寸、款式、品种都不重复。整个认证过程，就花了34天时间。2018年12月30日，她终于收到吉尼斯世界纪录官方挑战结果。

“收集胡桃夹子是我一生的追求和梦想，创下新的吉尼斯世界纪录以后，我依然会继续收集胡桃夹子。接下来，我还要为胡桃夹子办巡展，打造以‘胡桃夹子’为主题的产业链，比如，目前我们准备着手做民宿、主题酒店、主题乐园以及教育项目等。”李芳芳说，除了自身对胡桃夹子的延伸发展外，她还想借着此次展览计划组建一个胡桃夹子俱乐部，让更多的爱好者能够互相交流和促进。

Li Fangfang holds in her hands a World Guinness Record certificate with stacks

Girl in Rui’an Boasts World’s Largest Collection of Nutcrackers

The 36-year-old Li Fangfang is the only daughter of a family in Rui’an, a county-level city in Wenzhou, a port city in the southeast of Zhejiang Province. She received her first Nutcracker figure as a Christmas gift from her maternal uncle on the Eve of Christmas when she was nine years old. The wood puppet fascinated her tremendously and set her imagination on fire. She then read the story about the legendary figure who befriends one’s family members against monsters. She fell in love with the nutcracker. Over the past 20 some years, she has built up a collection of 10,127 nutcrackers. It is the world’s largest collection on December 30, 2018, as confirmed by the Guinness Records. Officially, hers is called the largest collection of the nutcracker and the mouse king memorabilia.

Most of these nutcrackers in her collection came from her overseas trips. In fact, she took overseas tours essentially in her hunting for all kinds of nutcrackers. In some cases, she paid more for shipping them back home than purchasing them from sellers. In 2016, she spent more than 40 days in the United States, searching and buying the nutcrackers of limited editions or those that look special. In a shop in Carmel, a town in Monterey, California, she spotted a limited edition nutcracker. The proprietor said the treasure of the house was not for sale. Li visited the shop three times and her story about her childhood memory, her passion for nutcrackers and her collection, touched the heartstring of the proprietor. Eventually, the nutcracker changed hands. And Li and the proprietor became friends. The proprietor congratulated Li on her world-record collection.

Li Fangfang cannot tell exactly where each piece in her collection came from over the past 20 plus years, but she is absolutely certain that she built the collection up piece by piece. The tallest in her collection measures 3 meters and the shortest only 1.5 centimeters. Her favorite is one called Noah’s Ark which was first issued more than 40 years ago. She spotted it in an antique shop in Rome more than ten years ago. After chatting with Li, the shop owner decided to give it to the Chinese visitor free of charge.

In 2017, Li Fangfang held an exhibition at an art museum in White Deer Park in Wenzhou to mark the 200th anniversary of The Nutcracker, a story written in 1816 by Prussian author E.T.A. Hoffmann. At the exhibition, she displayed 7,500 nutcrackers from her collection. Tens of thousands of people came to see the exotic puppets.

It was also in 2017 that she thought to put her collection into the Guinness World Records. The preparations took her more than a year in order to comply with all the guidelines listed in several tens of pages of an official Guinness manual. She put the whole collection in one large space in categories and prepared a catalogue of the whole collection. She also prepared a special manifest of the 283 special edition and exhausted edition nutcrackers. The third-party witnesses and Guinness officials came to check the whole collection out, recording all the details in writing and in video to make sure each one in the collection was different and there was no repetition at all. It took 34 days to complete the whole verification procedure. On December 30, 2018, Li Fangfang received the record-holder certification from the Guinness World Records.

“It is my lifelong ambition and dream of collecting nutcrackers,” says Li Fangfang. “My efforts will continue after the Guinness World Records. My nutcracker exhibition will take a road show. I plan to create a business franchise featuring nutcrackers. For example, I am engaged in programs of inns, theme hotels, theme parks and education.”

(Executive Editor: Xinyu Xie)