Troll numbers make record books

Sophie has been collecting troll dolls since 2003 after her brother bought her one as a present

Sophie Marie Cross holds the Guinness World Record for the greatest number of troll dolls.

The 13 year old from Wallingford has 545 different trolls, which she has been collecting since 2003.

Sophie mostly pays for her collection with her own pocket money, purchasing several a week at jumble sales with her friends.

She caught the collecting bug when her brother Matthew got a small troll of his own.

"I quite liked the look of it so I kind of carried on collecting them ever since then" Sophie told BBC Oxford.

"There were loads of different ones and I really liked them all so I just never stopped!"

Her collection comes in all shapes and sizes, varying from a two foot tall specimen to a two centimetre model. Some also come in the form of necklaces, rings and pencil toppers.

Collecting is a hobby that has become a tradition in the family. Her father collects lawnmowers and her granddad barn engines.

"Sophie's just done it for the sheer fun" explains her father, David. "If she's got five pence in her purse to buy a troll she might. We don't put a value to them.

"We do collect a lot of things as a family. Sophie's carrying on the tradition... it's a genetic thing!"

And it seems it's a tradition that is set to continue well into the future.

"I'm not going to stop collecting!" Sophie admits, and she's recently added Doctor Who comics and toys to her collecting hobby.

Craze

It was a Danish fisherman and woodcutter who invented the first in the line of troll dolls in 1959.

Thomas Dam carved one for his daughter and before long the whole town wanted a troll doll of their own.

The craze soon took off across the rest of the world, often with cheaper imitations constructed by overseas companies.

But it was not until 2003 that the Dam family became the official and sole manufacturer, their dolls always recognisable by the hair made of sheep's wool and eyes of glass.

That same year the Toy Industry Association named troll dolls in its Century of Toys List, commemorating the 100 most memorable toys of the 20th century.