News Collecting Olympic memorabilia is a serious business for Roberto Gesta de Melo One of the most prolific gatherers of Games-related artefacts in the world, the Brazilian has about 70,000 items stored in an air-conditioned annex he built next to his house in Manaus, a city in the Amazon rainforest “I have all of the coins, from all the Olympic Games, and also their different varieties, such as coins featuring minting errors, and those with shiny and matte versions, ” said Gesta, who is a member of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and a former president of the Brazilian Athletics Confederation (CBAt) One of the rarest Olympic coins is the solid gold Spanish peseta made for the Barcelona 1992 Games, of which just 120 copies were minted “This gold peseta is extremely rare, as it was only made for VIPs,” says Gesta, who had his coin stolen, but a decade later managed to obtain another one New batches of Rio 2016 commemorative coins and postal stamps launched The French showed their sense of humour with these coins made for the Albertville 1992 Winter Games (Photo: personal arquive)   Another rarity are Gesta’s commemorative coins from the Helsinki 1952 Games, including one minted the previous year “These Games were when coins started to be minted in silver and other metals Moscow 1980, for example, launched a series made out of platinum ”Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games to spark next wave of pin feverGesta has spent 40 of his 70 years building his collection, which is one of the largest in the world and includes items ranging from ancient times until today His haul includes many Olympic medals, most notably one of the London 1908 football gold medals Roberto Gesta de Melo has one of the biggest collections in the world (Photo: Getty Images/Ryan Pierse) There was in those Games that  Italy’s Dorando Petri was leading the race, but 350 metres from the end, suffering from exhaustion, he collapsed five times Disorientated, was he helped by the judges to cross the line, which led to his disqualification The gold medal went to the USA’s Johnny Hayes, but Queen Alexandra presented Pietri with a silver cup (This story was recounted in the Daily Mail by Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer who created Sherlock Holmes )Solid gold medals were only minted for four editions – Paris 1900, St Louis 1904, London 1908 and Stockholm 1912 – and only for certain sports   These Finnish markkaa coints, minted for the Helsinki 1952 Games, are among Melo's favourites (Photo: personal arquive)  Gesta also owns medal prototypes for editions of the Olympic Games cancelled due to wars: Berlin 1916 and Tokyo 1940 His collection includes medals made of paper, and other materials, featuring the five Olympic rings and the profile of a Greek athlete holding an olive branch, which were made by Polish prisoners at the Gross Born concentration camp in 1944, as a “celebration of hope” In addition to coins and medals, Gesta’s collection contains Greek urns, photos, posters, stamps, torches and documents – a haul that tells the story of sport over centuries   Coins from the Mexico City 1968, Munich 1972 and Sapporo 1972 Games (Photo: personal arquive)