The collection was started by a Russian student, from Moscow - Alexander Kundin in 1990, while he was on a Christmas trip to Czechoslovakia, now known as the Czech Republic. Having no Czech currency at the time, he traded a pack of Russian cigarettes for any souvenir he could get and that happened to be the first souvenir plate of this collection.
Today Kundin family includes Alexander, his wife - Irene and their three children: Andrew, Michael and Victoria. Now, every member of the family participates in the betterment of the collection, from designing a museum for it to creating our very own website. Family continue to travel actively around the world bringing plates from each country they have visited. Their friends and relatives help to grow the collection as well bringing them plates from their journeys.
Once the collection had grown past 600 plates, family decided it was time to apply to the Guinness Book Of World Records. After a long and strenuous process on October 1, 2012 Kundin's collection was finally recognized as the largest collection of souvenir plates. Kundin's collection is the only Guinness World Record in the state of Connecticut that can be felt and observed, and they are currently in the process of reapplying to the Guinness Book of World Records, since the collection has almost doubled in size, with a head count of 1555 plates as of April 2018.
The collection contains plates from 5 continents and 155 countries. These plates are not like expensive collectibles rather just your average souvenirs, and cost $15-$40 on average per plate. The sizes of the plates vary a lot from country to country and the largest plate right now is from Machu Picchu with a diameter of almost 15 inches, and our smallest from Scotland has a diameter of 1.5 inches.