FORGET the Yellow Pages, if you want a number for a business or tradesman, one man will almost certainly be able to help.

Former printer Mike Walker started collecting business cards through his work — and then found it hard to stop when he retired.

The 71-year-old’s collection now stands at a staggering 200,000 cards, which range from local contractors to a batch sent by a Consular-General from Mongolia.

The widower, who lives in Parkway, Westhoughton, also wrote to the White House and got a card back from Barak Obama.

He said: “People have often asked me why business cards, but they’re so useful and lots of people can’t bring themselves to throw them away, just in case,”

“My job was selling advertising space and I came across lots of business cards and started collecting them for safekeeping.

“That was 25 years ago, and when I retired I had so many, I just thought it’d be nice to carry it on.”

Business cards may seem an unusual thing to stockpile but Mr Walker insists it keeps visitors to his home enthralled for hours.

He said: “When I have people over I sit them down with a cup of tea and an album of business cards and that’s it, they’re off for an hour.” And his favourites were picked up from Boris Johnson, Seb Coe and Patrick Moore.

Mr Walker also has business cards from across the globe, including Tibet, Iraq and Iran.

He added: “I’ll literally take anything.”

The business card scene is more vibrant in America and Mr Walker has established good relations with the California-based American Business Card Club.

A batch they sent to him contained the oldest card in his collection, produced by a clothing firm in New York in about 1850.

Unfortunately, Mr Walker has very few like-minded souls in the UK to share his passion for business cards with.

“In this country, there are only two collectors I know of, myself and someone in Dunstall.”

His quirky pastime does attract generous gifts from people, some more unusual than others.

Mr Walker said: “A lot of people see them and say ‘I’ve got some business cards, I’ll bring them over to you’, but you very rarely hear anything back. But, this one time, this bloke had three drawers full of cards and he brought them over. There were about 1,500 in total.”

After the Jerusalem Post discovered the tale of Mr Walker’s penchant for business cards and ran a story, he was inundated with messages and cards from across the Jewish world.

He said: “One day, even a Consular-General from Mongolia rang me up and asked, ‘I hear you collect business cards’ and offered to send some over. “I mean, how on earth had he got to hear about my business cards?”

He added: “I’m happily retired now, but I’m always on the look-out for more cards. Just this morning I collected a new one from the Wigan Building Society.”