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Zoinks! West Vancouver collector aims for Guinness record

This Sunday, a West Vancouver woman will attempt to set a Guinness record for the world's largest collection of Scooby-Doo memorabilia - and she'll get away with it too, if not for you meddling kids.
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Jinkies! That's a lot of Scooby-Doo. West Vancouver resident Becky Findlay has been collecting memorabilia connected to the cartoon character since the late 1990s and figures she has more than 1,000 pieces. She is aiming to get into the Guinness Book of World Records.

This Sunday, a West Vancouver woman will attempt to set a Guinness record for the world's largest collection of Scooby-Doo memorabilia - and she'll get away with it too, if not for you meddling kids.

Becky Findlay has plush, plastic and porcelain versions of the cowardly, comedic canine, as well as tattoos inspired by the cartoon on her arm and back. Including comics, toys, posters and records, she estimates her collection comprises more than 1,000 pieces.

Jinkies! Findlay, 34, was a casual fan of Hanna-Barbera's Sunday morning cartoon.

"I wasn't obsessed or anything," she says.

She'd collected coins and bus transfers, but like a teenage detective who observes the apparition of a dead sea captain behind her, Findlay quickly changed direction one night.

She was looking through a Granville Street shop when she came across a Scooby-Doo candy machine that dispensed bone-shaped sweets.

Much like Scooby and Shaggy, Findlay decided she'd do it for a Scooby snack.

"I was like, 'Oh my God, Scooby-Doo! You never see anything Scooby-Doo!'" She forked over $8 and a collection was born.

Over the next 17 years Findlay has watched her collection grow, particularly after the release of the 2002 movie featuring Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

"After the movie came out, then you saw Scooby-Doo stuff everywhere," Findlay says.

The collection includes vintage comics and a Scooby-Doo Christmas album she has yet to listen to, because she doesn't have a record player anymore.

She picked up a porcelain doll of Scooby-Doo for $110 after an eBay bidding war and snagged a stand-up pinball machine after first spotting it on Craigslist.

"I was like, 'Oh my God, I need this,'" she recalls. "By the time I had called they had already sold it. I was like, 'Oh, you gotta be joking.'" She eventually found a vendor in Burnaby who sold Findlay the display model for $32.

She wears her most expensive items.

Findlay has Daphne and Velma tattooed on her back, as well as a quarter-sleeve featuring Scooby and a collage of ghosts including Captain Cutler and Jeepers It's The Creeper.

After sizing up her collection, Findlay thought about immortalizing her store of Scooby in the pages of Guinness.

"I had my first child in 2008 and that slowed things down," she says, noting that her daughter was singing the show's theme song at two-and-ahalf years old.

Findlay was initially rebuffed by Guinness in 2012, but decided to keep on applying.

Earlier this summer, she got an email letting her know that she was eligible for the new category.

She hopes to set the record this Sunday.

Asked why she focused on a TV show she enjoyed only moderately, Findlay hesitates.

"I don't really know what happened," she says. "I guess I found it a challenge."

Asked if collecting ever crossed the line into compulsive behaviour, Findlay laughs.

"I would say it's healthy. Others might disagree," she says good naturedly.