bhopal ranjeet kumar jha got ready that morning to donate blood at hamidia hospital while returning he chanced upon a rag picker collecting old looking cards and papers to throw at the dump yard intrigued by them he asked the rag picker whether he can take a look at them the rag picker gladly gave the garbage to him probably thanking him for saving his efforthe took the garbage home cleaned it and placed it nicely in an album he took it to an archaeologist as soon as he could and to his delight found that the cards he had found that day were rare postcards of british era during the term of king george v what would have rotten in a garbage dump was actually a collection of business postcards rate cards of grain old invitation cards and marriage cardsthere was no stopping jha after that he collected every other postcard he could lay his hands on his love for ancient things transformed into a hobby and two years later on last friday he received a national record certificate from limca book of records for having a collection of 2500 king george v antique postcards belonging to the periods 19151934 i sent my collection to limca book in may 2016 for evaluation and i got the confirmation mail in october that my collection has been chosen for national records 28 yearold engineer who works in a solar power company told toijha is the first person in india to hold such a record as no one else has been able to gather such a massive collection of postcard from that era most of the post cards are in marwadi and gujarati language i had to visit a lot of museums and speak to a lot of archaeologists to understand what was written on the post cards he added saying that he found many interesting stories revolving around the postcardsi have a postcard of neemuch which was not a district back then it was an association made to conduct business during british rule there is another postcard which mentions the rate of wheat as rs 3 per quintal and one which talk about some business deal for salt at sambhar lake jha saidlover of all things ancient jhas unique hobby is not limited to postcards as he also boasts of a collection of 105 types of weights that existed in the 20th century and coins made out of mud he says he started collecting ancient weights seven years ago even before he started collecting postcards living in a rented room near ashoka garden jha has made his home a museum of his own