A driveway in Mechanicsville turned into a sprawling grid of water blasters this week as brothers Mark and Kelly Guncheon and their wives arranged, numbered, and photographed 1,601 squirt guns in hopes of landing a Guinness World Record. The collection belonged to their late brother Paul Guncheon, who began amassing it in the 1980s and died in 2024, and the family says they wanted to finish what he started.
The Guncheon brothers and their wives spent six hours on the record attempt, according to Axios, laying out every piece in Mark's driveway so it could be counted and documented. By the family's own tally, the collection totals 1,601 squirt guns, which Mark Guncheon says exceeds the current Guinness benchmark by roughly 600 items. He also noted that the guns do not need to be filled with water to qualify for the record attempt.
A Film Credit for Paul Guncheon
Paul Guncheon served as production designer on the 1995 film Picture Bride, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Super Soaker is one water-gun model, and it was invented by a NASA engineer, according to Smithsonian Magazine. The Super Soaker Monster XL is another water-gun model, according to iSoaker.com.
Now the Family Waits on Guinness
The Guncheons are currently awaiting instructions from Guinness World Records on what verification steps come next, and Mark Guncheon has said the process could take a while. In recounting a collection attempt, Toy Tales describes detailed item documentation and a database. The outlet says Guinness receives more than 50,000 inquiries annually, a volume that may help explain the wait for niche submissions like this one.
Should the Guncheons' count hold up, it would join a small cluster of offbeat Guinness records with roots in the Richmond area. A woman in nearby Chesterfield has held the world record for the largest beaver-themed collection since 2020, with 1,456 items in her tally. And just up the road, the Richmond Tattoo & Arts Convention was recognized as the world's longest-running tattoo convention last year, with the event set to mark 38 years and counting after next weekend.
Open Water-Gun Records Beyond the Driveway
The Guncheons' driveway count sits alongside a handful of unrelated water-gun records already on the books. The largest functioning water pistol, a 12-foot, 7.75-inch model built for the television game show Let's Make a Deal, was certified by Guinness in March 2020. And the largest water pistol fight on record took place in September 2013 at the University of California, Irvine.
For now, the Guncheon family's record bid remains unresolved as they await instructions from Guinness. Mechanicsville, in Hanover County, isn't typically known for world-record attempts — but for one family honoring a brother who spent a lifetime building things by hand, the driveway full of squirt guns was never really about the title.
