Music fan puts 3.3 million albums on eBay

[hamilton]

Music fan puts 3.3 million albums on eBay

Record store owner sells 3.3 million vinyls and CDs on eBay, but you have to buy them all

February 20, 2008

Raju Mudhar

Entertainment Reporter

For Paul Mawhinney, it all started with Frankie Laine's "Jezebel" and fittingly, that song started a collection that has effectively become the other woman in his life.

The lifelong music fan and owner of the Record Rama Sound Archive store in Pittsburgh now has over three million vinyl records and 300,000 CDs in his personal collection, which he decided to put up for sale on eBay last week.

It's listed under the heading of "The World's Greatest Music Collection" with a starting bid of $3 million (U.S.), and Mahwinney is looking to sell his entire collection intact.

"I'm really not interested in collectors because I don't want it to be broken up. This is my life's work and this is for future generations," the 68-year-old said in a phone interview from his store.

"I want the history of American popular music to be available for future generations, and if I sell this as a whole and they keep it together, or give it to a museum, that would be wonderful."

Citing health issues and a desire to spend more time with his family as his reasons for selling, Mawhinney says the collection has been appraised at over $50 million.

He almost sold it in 1999 for $28 million to CD Now, an early Internet music e-tailer, but 12 days before the deal was supposed to close, the company went bankrupt.

Since then, he's almost made deals to give it to the Library of Congress and other institutions, but the funding has fallen through numerous times. So he decided to go to the Web and open it up to the world.

There were no bids on eBay as of press time, but Mawhinney says the interest has been overwhelming.

"Oh, it's unbelievable. I think over 80,000 people have been to the site and I know there are close to 1,000 people on reserve just watching the bid. It's only going to be up for 10 days," he says. "And I'm pretty confident. In fact, I know it's going to be sold."

Mawhinney says he started his record store because his wife told him he had to get his already massive record collection – which at the time numbered in the 160,000 range – out of the house.

He says he didn't want to actually get into the business, but it seemed the best way to make use of his hobby. He stopped actively collecting music in 2002 and since then, archiving and cataloguing the six-million-plus songs has become his full-time job and ongoing labour of love.

Every day, as he's sorting through the collection, "I find music that I didn't have yesterday," he says.

He says the collection holds every genre of American music there is, from the aforementioned Frankie Laine to ZZ Top, and in most forms of packaging, including acetates, eight tracks and LPs in every speed. There are also several duplicates of many of the recordings.

As well, he has an ancillary collection of phonographs, jukeboxes and other devices tracing music's history over the past century.

Because of the sheer size of the collection, he's also offering his services for the next six months to the potential buyer to help them sort and organize.

The eBay auction closes tomorrow.

Link.

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WOW

[phishtaper]

wow indeed! here's the auction.

[Kanada Kev]

www.TheGreatestMusicCollection.com

eBay link

[Gr8FuL]

This guy is awesome!!! that collection is amazing. I'de love to just go hang out there for like a week and listen to tunes. All kinds of Tunes. Can;t wait to see where this collectiosn goes or who gets it.

[phishtaper]

it's so cool how he is framing the collection as a big slice of cultural/musical history, and isnt considering splitting it up. some of the Q&A on the auction are really interesting.

i wonder if it will actually sell. i can see some billionaire oil sheik buying it for fun. shipping alone is estimated to be $100,000 to $150,000.

[Ms.Huxtable]

But this item qualifies for a $10 rebate from ebay. SO worth it.

[Kanada Kev]

Looks like he's really hoping that a library or university will come forward to buy it and make sure that it remains in tact.

It's not a collection, it's a museum!

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http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2008/02/22/4868359-ap.html

dude got $3 million for it

[backbacon]

Maybe now he can buy a bigger television set!

I wish I had just spent $3 million on that collection.

[Ms Zimmy]

The new owner of this magnificent collection will also acquire (1) the rights to Spin-Clean, the owner's patented vinyl record cleaning system, considered the best on the market by audiophiles the world over, (2) the rights to Discmist CD cleaner, (3) CD Saver 2-part archival CD storage sleeves, (4)Yellow Jacket 45 RPM acid-free archival storage sleeves, (5) ownership of the owner's six publishing companies and eight independent record labels, and (7) more than $100,000 worth of antique recording and listening devices and other music memorabilia currently on loan to a museum.

gotta love perks