Weird records, expensive adjudicators and propaganda: facts about the Guinness Book of Records

No, the name isn’t a coincidence. The Guinness Book of Records is actually called that because of the Irish brewery. The story supposedly starts in Ireland in the 1950s. After a shoot, the men are still sitting around, discussing why the shotgun pellets from their rifles missed the game birds. They concluded that their inability wasn’t to blame; they were in fact dealing with the fastest wild bird in Europe. But there was no proof. Back then, the hunting party couldn’t just pull out their smartphones and look up the truth on Wikipedia.

Children's books

Ravensburger Guinness World Records 2025

German, 2024, Guinness World Records Ltd.

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Children's books

Ravensburger Guinness World Records 2025

German, 2024, Guinness World Records Ltd.

4

So, the then managing director of Guinness Brewery, Hugh Beaver – who was also part of the post-shoot discussion – came up with an idea: he wanted to publish a reference work including all kinds of records. But he couldn’t get the project off the ground on his own, so he teamed up with twins Ross and Norris McWhirter, who had a fact-finding agency in London. The book’s first edition was published at the end of August 1955 under the title Guinness World Records. At Christmas, it topped the British bestseller list.

Beaver had abandoned the original idea of giving the book away for free to pub customers. The commercial success of selling the book was greater than advertising through giveaways.

Big stateside success

Today, almost 70 years later, The Guinness Book of World Records is one of the most successful books in the world. Over 150 million copies have been sold, and the book is available in 100 countries and in 40 languages. That makes it more successful than The Hobbit (100 million sales), but still behind the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (252 million). (If you’re interested, you can find a detailed ranking here (in German).)

On the one hand, the book itself makes money. But it quickly became a whole concept – virtually a brand of its own From 1972 onwards, there was a British TV series about the Guinness records. But it was American David A. Boehm who really got the money rolling in. He brought the record book – which had been so successful in England in 1955 – to the USA in 1956 and made it popular there through his publishing house Sterling Publishing. In return for the publishing rights, the Guinness Brewery received a percentage of the sales revenue.

In 1961, Boehm published a US version for the first time, listing baseball records that wouldn’t have interested anyone in England. In the 1970s, the annual book sold over three million copies. From the 1980s onwards, Boehm began selling merchandise related to the book and granting licences. But the inventors at Guinness Brewery had had enough of the capitalist treadmill. In a legal battle that lasted 18 months, they regained the rights in 1989 – for a comparatively small sum of 8 million US dollars.

Curiosities and records in one company

For twelve years, from 1989 to 2001, the record book was back in the care of the Irish brewery. Then it changed hands for the equivalent of 65 million dollars before the owners were bought out. The new owners were then bought out themselves.

In 2008, the rights to The Guinness Book of World Records finally ended up belonging to Canadian conglomerate the Jim Pattinson Group. The Guinness Book of Records is part of its entertainment division and the Ripley brand. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! is the name of the franchise, which is very well known in North America. Its comics, museums and theme parks are all about curiosities, natural wonders and records. Some of the Ripley’s exhibits are pretty disturbing – a museum in Wisconsin has the mummified head of German serial killer Peter Kürten, who was feared as the «Vampire of Düsseldorf» during the Weimar Republic.

The Guinness Book of Records and the website listing all the records still contain some gruesome details, such as an overview of the worst mass killings or a reference to Elizabeth Báthory as reportedly the most prolific female murderer. But at least there’s a note that no applications to break records like these are accepted.

Today, the focus is more on people who break positive records. For example, the 2025 edition of the Guinness Book of Records will recognise Barbie, Taylor Swift and extreme athlete Preet Chandi as icons. Unlike in previous editions, Adolf Hitler no longer has a place in the record book. However, there’s still a poorly maintained entry on the Guinness Book of Records website about the genocide of the Jewish people.

Bizarre and unusual records

Most records that find their way into the book these days aren’t morally or ethically objectionable. They’re often questionable, but only as a good topic of conversation for an evening at the pub. Especially if the record has something disreputable or mysterious about it. Did you know, for example, that the largest stock of Roman-era curse tablets was discovered in the 1970s during excavations in Britain – all 131 of them. On each one, a Roman had addressed a deity and asked them to harm an enemy. There are plenty of other bizarre records. Have a guess below. The answer’s in the dropdown box. The most popular guess isn’t necessarily the right one. It’s just what most readers think.

Records for propaganda

Some records are valuable PR and good marketing for companies. This is how the Rhaetian Railway ended up in the 2024 edition of the Guinness Book of Records. Its achievement was the longest passenger train in the world (see the video here). The chain of carriages that snaked its way along the Albula line in October 2022 was exactly 1,906 metres long. An adjudicator invited by the Rhaetian Railway was also there. I learned from the media office in Chur that she measured a carriage on the eve of the record attempt and then multiplied the value by the number of planned carriages to verify the record length. The Rhaetian Railway had to cover the costs of her travel and accommodation. However, the media spokesperson wasn’t willing to tell me how much was spent on this.

In Turkmenistan, head of state Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow – who was in office until 2022 and ruled in the style of a dictator – has put his country in the Guinness Book of Records several times. Among other things, he had the largest indoor Ferris wheel built and the highest density of buildings with marble facades created. Comedian John Oliver humorously dealt with Gurbanguly’s obsession in an episode of his late-night talk show (starting at 13 minutes).

Turkmenistan’s former ruler is likely to approve of the blog post by travel operator Saiga Tours, which explicitly lists the Guinness records in the country as a reason to visit.

People who set records become cash cows

The rapid expansion of the internet – and with it the world’s knowledge – has caused book sales to plummet over the past 20 years. This has also changed the publisher’s business model. Now it’s mainly the people who set records who bring in sales. According to the regulations on the Guinness Book of Records website, anyone can register a record attempt, but they should expect long wait times. And it costs 5 dollars per entry – with no refund if you’re rejected, of course. According to a report, around 50,000 people pay the application fee every year.

But Guinness gets more money if prospective record holders want to shorten the wait of at least 12 weeks – it costs at least 800 dollars extra. It’s even more expensive if you want your record attempt to be supervised by an official Guinness Book of Records adjudicator. You have to cover their travel, flights (in business class of course) and accommodation. But you can also document the record attempt yourself, provided you follow a long list of rules. By the way, if you manage to set a record, you won’t see a penny for it. Record holders don’t get any prize money or bonuses. So, it’s only the publisher who’ll make money from your special talent.

Records as marketing opportunities

Companies can contact the organisation’s five offices around the world if they want to turn a record attempt into a marketing event. On the website, the department in question acts like a marketing agency, including examples of best practice. For example, Whiskas secured the entry for the loudest purr by a cat. Car manufacturer Chevrolet is officially responsible for the largest flag ever pulled by a car. And official record adjudicators were present when Austrian Felix Baumgartner jumped from space towards Earth in 2012, powered by Red Bull.

TV satirist Jan Böhmermann showed what other weirdness can occur as part of Guinness world records in his show on ZDF in March 2023 (video below in German).

Record holder without an official entry

Not everyone plays by the Guinness Book of Records rules. For Austrian Andreas Dick, it’s enough to write what he’s achieved in his personal record book. He travels cities’ subway networks to visit all the stations in the shortest possible time. In Hamburg, for example, he managed the 109 stations in just under five hours. In an interview with Die Zeit (in German), he explains that flying in an official adjudicator in business class would be too expensive for him.

You can find even more records that aren’t yet worthy of being included in the Guinness Book of Records on Reddit. Several forums are dedicated to whether certain achievements have a chance. You can find screenshots of iPhones whose stopwatches have been running for tens of thousands of hours. I find the number of unread emails in this image below almost more impressive. I wonder if it’ll make it into the Guinness Book of Records?