A July 29 count of Irene Sparks' ties was successful, Guinness World Records has confirmed today.
After receiving an email today from the records management team at Guinness World Records, an anxious 12-week wait was over, Mrs Sparks said.
While the day was "exciting'' she felt "relief that it is actually mine now''.
"I've got the title. I've got the world title. I don't get a big belt like Parker [WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker] or anything, I just get a piece of paper, but yeah,'' she said.
"It was four years in the coming, it was four months in the planning and then of course it was just this one day of the execution -- and it all came together and the people were awesome, the help that I got from Oamaru people and my friends.''
About 80% of Mrs Sparks' collection came after venturing to more than 250 South Island op shops in search of ties.
But she also received donations after now-retired Otago Daily Times The Wash columnist Dave Cannan put out an appeal for ties two years ago and ties began to roll in.
This winter, Mrs Sparks and about about 20 friends and volunteers counted her collection of 21,321 individual, different ties.
Two weeks later she sent away photographic and video evidence to the records management team at Guinness World Records.
She said she was anxious about whether she had met all the stringent requirements set out by Guinness World Records to challenge one of their titles, but also she had been anxious she might get pipped by another before her title was made official.
"We're only a small country of what 4 million people now and I got my ties over four years in op shops and donations, but imagine if you lived in the States or even Australia there's lots more people, lots more op shops, just more ties, so if somebody was dedicated and wanted to do it they could it."
Mrs Sparks bested American Dr Derryl Ogden's 12-year-old Guinness World Record collection of 16,055 ties, by 5266 ties. He collected his ties over his entire life.
Mrs Sparks said she understood his tie collection had sold in its entirety after his death.
