How I Met and Became Friends With Tracey Nicol-Lewis

On April 23, 2021, Wales resident Tracey Nicol-Lewis learned that she had been awarded the Guinness World Record for the largest Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts collection, with a total of 5,434 items. There have already been several articles describing her win, including a great one at Mugglenet, so I’m not going to reword what’s already been said. Instead, I’m going to take a personal approach to Tracey’s story, since she is a dear friend of mine and I was fortunate enough to see her journey from behind the scenes.

To do this, I’m going to start at the beginning. More specifically, the beginning of my friendship with Tracey. It started on a very hot afternoon at the end of January in 2018, in Orlando, Florida.

My daughter and I attended the 2018 Celebration of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, a three day event. I’d been to two of the Celebrations in the past, but never as a ticket holder. There was a lot more that I could experience with a ticket so I saved money all the previous year and bought the top-tier package. This included a meet-and-greet with the actors who attended, where I could get their autographs and take pictures with them.

I had to choose the date and time for my meet-and-greet in advance, and I chose Friday. Universal contacted me a few weeks before the Celebration and said that the time I’d chosen wasn’t going to work and that I needed to choose a new date and time. So, I chose an afternoon time on Saturday. Nope, I’m wrong. I just checked my calendar and see that it was actually at 10:15am the morning, so I stand corrected.

Saturday morning rolled around and I was dressed in a pretty blue gown and a beautiful deep blue velvet cape that I had made for myself many years earlier. I was dressed as Rowena Ravenclaw, but as I stood in line outside the building that housed the actors I realized that it was hot. Really hot. Wearing a thick velvet cape wasn’t helping. I knew that it would be even hotter inside and was concerned that I would overheat if I continued to wear the cape. However, I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t want to carry it because I was going to have pictures taken with the actors and I didn’t want to drop it on the ground.

Looking around as I neared the entrance to the building, I saw two women sitting nearby. I recognized them as having been at the beginning of the line that I was in, which meant they had already had their time with the actors. After studying them for a few moments I decided that they looked trustworthy, and they didn’t look like they were going anywhere soon.

I told my daughter that I’d be right back, and then I approached the two women. I explained that I was really hot and didn’t want to wear my cape inside, and asked if it would be okay to leave it with them while I had my turn with the actors. They both agreed and I went back to my daughter. (Next to Lindsay was a custom LEGO set that she built and had the actors autograph, but that’s a story for another article.)

After we had our meet-and-greet with the actors – James and Oliver Phelps (aka Fred and George Weasley), Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley), Stan Yanevski (Viktor Krum), and Natalia Tena (Nymphadora Tonks) – we went back outside. As promised, the two women were still sitting, taking care of my cape. I thanked them and we introduced ourselves. One woman was Lindsay and the other was Tracey.

I saw them again later the next day at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream parlor and took this picture of them. The three of us hit it off and the three of us became friends (I even worked with Lindsay at one point and we went on opening day together to ride the new Hagrid ride at Universal Studios). They are both wonderful women and I am grateful to have them in my life, and it’s all because of my cape and a hot January morning.

Sadly, 2018 turned out to be the final Celebration of Harry Potter (I am SOOOOOO glad that I splurged on the top tier tickets!) but Tracey came back to the US at the end of January in 2019. The three of us got together again, traded gifts for one another, and enjoyed each other’s company. We also did some shopping at a local mall. For Harry Potter items, of course!

On a side note, Tracey bought a new house in mid-2019. I’ve read several articles that say Tracey moved because of her Harry Potter collection, but this isn’t true. I cringe every time I read that and I know that Tracey never said that to whoever had interviewed her. The move was done because of personal reasons and, although it ended up being a MUCH longer process than Tracey and her then-fiance expected, it worked out perfectly because the home they ended up buying was previously a pub and has plenty of room for her collection.

Tracey came back again at the end of January, 2020. This time her visit wasn’t just to shop. This time, she and her fiance got married at one of her favorite places: Discovery Cove in Orlando, FL. Lindsay was in the wedding and I was there to witness it. It was, as you might guess, Harry Potter themed. Unlike two years earlier, that winter’s morning was cold (at least, it was to me, if not to Lindsay or Tracey, as you can see in the picture) and I wore my cape to keep warm. It was a beautiful wedding, full of wonderful memories.

I’m not sure exactly when Tracey first said that she was thinking about going for the Guinness World Record, but it was some time around her wedding. She wasn’t serious about it yet, merely considering it, because she knew that it was a monumental undertaking and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to deal with it. Her husband encouraged her and she officially took the plunge in March of 2020.

Attempting to get a Guinness World Record is much more difficult than I ever guessed it would be. The items have to be catalogued (each item photographed), they need to be official merchandise (i.e. not fan made), and duplicates of the same item are not allowed unless it was something with different serial numbers.

Additionally, two people are required to witness the entire cataloguing process. As you can imagine, this is a very lengthy process for someone going for a record where there are thousands of items to go through, as Tracey did. What made it even more difficult for Tracey was that she hadn’t yet unpacked completely from her recent move, so she had to go through a lot of boxes to make sure she’d found everything. (She hadn’t! She told Lindsay and me recently that she found some more items in her attic.)

The process of documenting all her items took over a year to complete. She started in March of last year, at the beginning of the lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic, and submitted her results on April 3rd of this year (2021). During that time, she had her items laid out throughout her home and had to leave them out until she was done.

Think about that for a moment. Imagine moving into the house of your dreams and instead of unpacking and making it exactly as you want it, you end up putting Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts merchandise all over every spare piece of space, and have to leave it like that for a year. The reason why she had to leave it all out was in case she had to recount anything. Lastly, she had to record one of the witnesses counting everything. As I said above, it’s a difficult process.

Did I mention how hard it was?

There were several times when Tracey seriously considered giving up. Thankfully, her husband was there to support her and was her biggest cheerleader. She acknowledges that she probably would have given up if not for him.

I remember April 3rd. Tracey was so excited that the counting and cataloguing process was finally over, that she’d submitted everything required of her (which, in itself, took many days). Now all she had to do was wait. She applied for a rapid review of her application so she didn’t have to wait too long. It was on April 23rd that she was told that she qualified and was the new record holder.

I remember April 23rd even better than the 3rd. Tracey had used her husband’s email address when she applied for the record so he found out first. He called her and told her, and she was over the moon with joy. A day or two later she was still finding it hard to believe that she’d achieved her dream of holding the record.

It was a long journey, but Tracey made it, and I very much enjoyed seeing her as she progressed through the long process and finally won the record. Congratulations, Tracey!!!

By the way, Tracey has a Facebook group dedicated to her love of the Wizarding World, which you are welcome to join. You can do so here. Tracey shares pictures of her immense collection in her group, if you want to see more of what she has.

Tracey, have fun organizing your house, now that you can FINALLY do so!