Updated May 20, 2017 12:12:22

Photo: Gold Coast collector Victor Hoog Antink has torches from every summer Olympic Games (ABC Gold Coast: Damien Larkins)

A Queensland man who has gathered one of every Summer Olympic Games torch is putting his private collection on show.

The Olympic torch was introduced at Hitler's 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

There have been 19 Olympics held since and Gold Coast collector Victor Hoog Antink has a torch from every event.

"I have always loved the story of the Olympics," Mr Hoog Antink said.

It was while running with the torch before the 2000 Sydney Olympics that his passion was ignited.

The company director scoured the internet and used a broker to collect what is thought to be Australia's only complete set.

He was in a race with a financial services company AMP, but they stopped collecting after the Sydney Games.

"I know AMP spent hundreds of thousands of dollars putting their collection together but I really don't want to put a value on [mine] at this time," Mr Hoog Antink said.

Of all the torches, it was the one from the 1952 Helsinki Games which proved the hardest to source.

The collector eventually found the torch he wanted in Greece, the birth place of the Olympics, and flew there to negotiate a price.

"There are very, very few of Helsinki that exist because they were solid silver," he said.

"So, the originals are all but gone."

Mr Hoog Antink's favourite torch is, of course, home-grown.

"You can't go past Sydney," he said.

"I think it's aerodynamic, it's a great design and it really demonstrates and environmentally-friendly design."

The private collection has now gone on public display at Bond University.

Photo: Mr Hoog Antink has had special hooks made to display his Olympic torch collection, including this one from the Seoul Games. (ABC Gold Coast: Damien Larkins)

Topics: offbeat, lifestyle-and-leisure, human-interest, sport, people, olympics-summer, library-museum-and-gallery, southport-4215

First posted May 20, 2017 11:15:02