The cold room in Heinz Naef's home in Dawson City will be put to good use for the time being as he stores what could potentially be the largest moose antlers in the world.

"It's a world record,” he proudly said this morning of the unofficial results.

Clint Walker, an official scorer with Boone and Crocket, took official measurements last night, with the antlers coming in with an overall point score of 263 1/8 – which would make it a world record.

A panel of judges in the U.S. will have to review it before it is officially declared a world record, Naef said in an interview from Dawson. The current record is 261 5/8, he noted.

"It was quite a show,” he said as he recalled the 35 or so family members and friends who gathered at his home for the official

measuring by Walker, who went to Dawson from Whitehorse to do the measuring.

The measurements were taken more than two months after Naef shot the moose near the confluence of the Yukon and Stewart rivers, as there is a required 60-day waiting period before the official measurements can be taken.

The wait allows time for the antlers to dry out and provides for any shrinkage that can occur with the drying process.

In this case, for example, the width of the antlers shrank from 75 1/4 inches to 75 1/8.

It's not only the width which is used to determine whether the antlers will hold the world record.

As Naef explained during an interview in October, also measured are the circumference of the two main beams where the antlers attach to the head, the widest point of a single palm and the overall length of a single palm.

"It's really close,” Naef said, comparing his antlers to that of the current record holder, which came from Alaska.

Naef wasn't far from the border where that moose was shot when he first heard the moose.

The bull wasn't unusually large, given the size of the antlers, weighing approximately 1,250 lbs. or more, he said earlier.

Naef has estimated the moose to have been between eight and 10 years old.

The hunter said he's not sure when the antlers will go before the panel of judges, as they convene "on their leisure,” as he describes it.

For now, he said, he'll keep the antlers, which will take up a lot of space in his home's cold storage room.

As he pointed out, they need to be stored in a dark place that is neither too cold nor too hot, as that can affect the size.

If the antlers are officially declared a world record, he'd like to see them displayed for the public.

"This would be good for the Yukon to have this in our possession again,” Naef said in October's interview.