HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — Truth be told, most of us probably never thought much about slide charts and wheel charts, much less what it would take to be certified the world’s top collector of them.

But Dale Rupert, all by himself, makes up for that collective ignorance of the rest of the world.

Rupert, of Lower Paxton Township, Dauphin County, bought his first slide chart — which look a little like old slide rules, which helped people in the pre-calculator days with simple math problems, but help with more complex tasks than the slide rules did — from RadioShack in 1970.

Rupert, an electrical engineer, paid eight cents for the chart, which — if you’re wondering — shows value of resistance of color bands on a resistor. (Don’t we sound like we know what we’re talking about, the way we wrote that sentence right there?)

Not everything in this realm is complicated: Wheel charts are like slide charts, but round.

Rupert started collecting both in earnest in the early 2000s

“When I get up to 1000, I can quit,” Rupert remembers thinking as he approached 500. “You know, I had goals back then!”

Today, the charts are neatly numbered from one to 3,117 — that’s how many he has. His Guinness World Records certificate is for “only” 1,111, because turns out it’s quite a process to verify each one, and anyway, is anyone really going to top that?

Turns out that, in turn, is not just a rhetorical question, because sure enough, Rupert bumps up against two or other three prolific collectors of the charts whenever he’s bidding online for one. But if anyone manages to beat him, well, you might say he has plenty more “in his pocket,” which is perfect, because that’s where most — although not all — slide charts are designed to fit. (Rupert also has bins for “big” and “bulky” charts — labeled exactly that way; no need to overcomplicate things.)

The charts — most of them from pre-internet days — help users do everything from convert degrees Fahrenheit to degrees Celsuis, to working out guitar chords based on the key of a song. Another has a full year’s NFL schedule: Slide it to the current week, and through a window, you can see the opponents for all the teams, which are listed on the non-sliding part.

Rupert eschews some more modern technology — he doesn’t have a cell phone — although he does use a computer… to keep track, on an Excel sheet, of all the slide charts and wheel charts. Which, to be clear, aren’t the only thing he collects: His house is also full of everything from microscopes to miniature solar-powered this-and-that, all neatly organized.

The world record certificate, meanwhile, isn’t the only Guinness certificate Rupert has. He also has one for managing to pour a “perfect pint” of the beer by the same name in Dublin. The two Guinness organizations were once related; they’re not anymore. But “I enjoy both of them,” Rupert said, and has the two certificates hanging side by side.

Rupert knows most people won’t be inspired, from his story, to collect slide charts or wheel charts — or likely anything at all. But step back, and there’s plenty of broader inspiration to be found in his hobbies.

“Do things you like that are fun in your life,” said Rupert, asking if there’s a message in all this for the rest of us. “And if you can share them with people, so much the better.”