"Well, I started the long, laborious process of trying to catalogue them about two or three years ago. And I have literally barely scratched the surface."

Gary Cowen is considering how many objects of Heart of Midlothian memorabilia he has amassed. His cataloging has reached 2,000 programmes. He estimates he has around 5,000 of those alone. The total number, including everything from strips to medals, backpacks to handkerchiefs, is twice as much.

In his book celebrating the club's 150-year history through items, artifacts, and objects there is an understandable inclusion in the acknowledgment section, thanking his "lovely wife", owing to a couple of rooms in their home having been taken over by Hearts-related memorabilia. 

It all started in 1973 when he attended his first Hearts match and got his hands on his first programme.

The collection expanded to take on all memorabilia around a quarter of a century ago. A phone call regarding a Jim Cruickshank shirt was the catalyst.

Now, his three main sources are eBay and similar websites, specialist auctions and simply being known as a collector. 

"I think that the very first game that I went to in 1973 my uncle bought me a programme for the game," he said, reflecting on where it all started. "I kind of thought, 'This is a nice souvenir' so I ended up buying programmes from games.

"That developed into an interest in trying to collect all the programmes from a particular season. And that then led to trying to collect programmes from previous seasons.

"At least 25 years ago, I got a call from Brian Johnston, who is a very big collector and dealer and has a shop near Easter Road [The Football Programme Shop on Albion Road]. He asked me if I would be interested in buying Jim Cruikshank's shirt from the 1976 Scottish Cup final. 

"That was the first kind of memorabilia item that I bought that wasn't a programme and it just blossomed from there. I was on the lookout for anything and everything."

That "anything and everything" has turned into 'From Medals to Toffee Tins: A History of Hearts in 150 Memorabilia Objects', now on bookshelves and available to order. 

Cowen is someone many Hearts fans will be aware of.

Not only does he possess perhaps the biggest collection of club memorabilia but he is a Foundation of Hearts board member and a key part of the club's programme having been a contributor for more than 20 years. He edited eigtheen74, a Hearts history publication, and is a member of the Hearts archive group and helped to set up the club's museum where some of his collection is on display.

The book itself has been two and a half years in the making. Spurred on by Grant Young's award-winning 51 shirts book he wanted to tell the history of the club in a unique way and eventually tied it in with the 150th anniversary. 

Once Pitch Publishing took it on it was "a case of choosing 150 items to represent the 150 years".  And understandably, "narrowing it down was quite a kind of difficult process" that ended with a drive to Coventry with the car full of memorabilia for photography for the book.

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"It was a kind of constantly changing, movable feast to be honest," he said of the process. "I wanted to try and have roughly similar numbers of items from each decade. I started with a list of about 200 and then narrowed it down from there.

"One thing that I definitely wanted to do, which I hope comes through in the book, is that I wanted it to highlight the variety of memorabilia items out there. It wasn't intended to be all programmes. It wasn't intended to be all shirts. It wasn't intended to be all medals. That's the point of the title, From Medals to Toffee Tins. 

"There's a Hearts handkerchief from the 1960s. There's a school bag from the 1970s. It's everyday items that Hearts fans would have had to show their support for the club.

"Part of the thinking behind that was that the memorabilia forms a tangible story of how the club draws people together as well. It's not just about the football. It's about the community and about telling the story of that community and our shared experiences watching the team over the years."

Cowen's oldest item dates back to 1878 with a suitable apocryphal tale behind it.

"Four years after the club was formed, we played Hibs in what was then called the Edinburgh FA Challenge Cup Final, which became the East of Scotland FA Challenge Cup, then became the East of Scotland Shield," he said. "Back in the very, very early days, we played Hibs in this final in 1878 and it took five games to separate the teams.

"Hearts won it in the end. That was the one where legend has it that at the end of the game, Tom Purdie, who was Hearts captain, was set upon by a group of Hibs fans who didn't like the fact that Hearts had eventually won the cup.

"They chased him down the Cowgate allegedly. I'm not sure whether that story is true, but it's certainly a good story and I've got one of the winner's medals from that competition."

The most unusual is from 1896.

"It's just a brochure of two sides of paper with hand-drawn pictures of all the players," Cowen said. "I think it is an early kind of version of a Panini sticker album but for the 19th century.

"It was something where someone produced this for fans to buy to have pictures of their favourite players. I've never seen another one since then. It's not in great condition but it's very, very unusual."

A Museum Night is being held at Tynecastle Park on Friday evening to launch the book. Cowen is looking forward to presenting and discussing several standout objects featured in his book, offering a deeper understanding of their significance and the stories they tell about the club's history.

There are between 15 and 20 of his objects and items on loan permanently at the museum.

"It's one thing to have these things, but it's lovely to share them with other people and give people the opportunity to see what's out there and share in the history," he said.

"Hopefully, people will get quite a lot of enjoyment out of reading it and seeing the items. It's been a real buzz.

"It's something I'm very passionate about. It's not something that's felt like a chore at any point. It's been something that I've really, really enjoyed doing."

The Museum Night for the launch of the book takes place in the museum at Tynecastle Park on Friday, October 18, 7pm-10pm. Tickets are available via this link.

You can order the book via this link.