World's Greatest Music Collection For Sale

Well, if you need to see a picture, you clearly can't afford this "archive."

This story never fails to irritate me and fascinate me in equal parts.

 

there are going to be some rare and valuable records in a collection that size, methinks.

 

For $3 million there better be

I mentioned this several pages back, but if I had $3 million to spend on CDs and vinyl, and could shop anywhere int he world to get them, I'd be very hard pressed to find enough items to use up all the money.

 

Compensated?!? Yeah, like why?!? Just standing there telling the
movers what to do with 'his' collection isn't WORTH having the
guy around to pay him, weirder yet because it wouldn't even BE
his anymore!!

LOL!!

Bill

 

...Again!

Zero bids.

Chris

 

how complete is this collection??

i just can't see this guy buying a cannibal corpse cd.

 

He's closing up shop... and still hasn't sold it:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08235/906256-54.stm

Record dealer closes shop on a sour note
Friday, August 22, 2008
By Dan Majors, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Mr. Mawhinney is closing Record-Rama after 41 years of business. At 5 p.m. yesterday, the time when he said he was going to close the door to his Record-Rama Sound Archives forever, Paul C. Mawhinney was busy doing the same thing he'd been doing for decades.

He was selling an album to a customer.

A short while later, however, Mr. Mawhinney turned the key in the lock at his shop in the Pines Plaza Shopping Center in Ross, denying further access to what he calls "the world's largest collection of sound recordings."

"I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the whole industry," said Mr. Mawhinney, 68, who has owned and operated his record store in four Pittsburgh locations, including a store over the post office on McKnight Road and the original shop on Route 8 in Etna.

"I'm frustrated. Broken-hearted. I can't make money at it anymore," he said, his voice betraying more bitterness than sadness. "Why are there three record shops in this city when there once was 167?

"I loved this business. But 15 years ago, the industry started dropping out from the independents and going with the mass merchandisers, Best Buy, Circuit City and Wal-Mart. And those three places sell CDs below cost. My cost from a distributor is $12.97. They're retailing them at $10.99."

Because of that, Mr. Mawhinney said, he quit buying compact discs in 2002. He sold his collection of 300,000 CDs in the past few weeks.

The rest of his collection -- including half a million albums, more than a million 45s, and thousands of cassettes and eight-track tapes -- is now behind locked doors. Most of the singles are in mint condition, having never been under a phonograph needle.

Mr. Mawhinney, who started his massive record collection 41 years ago, is headed into retirement with intentions of caring for his family. His wife, Collette, is having knee-replacement surgery this morning, and he has had two strokes that have slowed him down. He's also legally blind, wearing a magnifying glass around his neck so he can read the fine print on the records he cherishes.

He said he tried to find a new home for his records, but one potential buyer went bankrupt and another, responding to an eBay auction, turned out to be bogus. He shopped the collection around to museums, but there was little if any interest, and no one wanted to pay him anything near what he believes it to be worth.

"The city could have helped by supporting this collection as a museum," he grumbled. "The Heinz History Center said they'd take [the records] by the local Pittsburgh artists, but I wouldn't split that out of my collection."

And so it sits, stashed on carefully arranged shelves until Mr. Mawhinney lines up a warehouse where it can be stored.

The glory days of his business, Mr. Mawhinney said, were only 10 years ago, when customers were buying copies of music in different forms. On any given Saturday, he said, he'd make $40,000.

"Now, on a Saturday, if I do $200 today, it's a miracle," he said.

He blames the customers as much as the industry. Young people care more about the convenience of their iPods than they do about the quality of the sound. And they aren't concerned about their musical heritage.

"Pittsburgh is such a famous city for music. Do you think anybody knows that?" he said. "They don't even know the artists. I go to their funerals and there's nobody there. Some of the people who wrote some of the grandest music that exists, and they don't even know who the hell they are."

Mr. Mawhinney said he wouldn't miss the business. And he certainly won't miss the music.

"I have enough music at home," he said. "And that's the part of it I love the most."

Dan Majors can be reached at [email protected] or 412-263-1456.

First published on August 22, 2008 at 12:00 am

 

Perhaps if he had a store where people could actually browse for records, he'd still be able to sell more than $200 per weekend.

 

I'll buy his collection but only if he has really nice copies of Sing Along with Mitch, The Firestone Christmas Album, and Color Me Barbra.

His ego won't let him break up the "archive." There's no doubt he could get a lot of money for it. Probably enough to live on. But he'd have to part it out or sell it in chunks. Get top dollar for the good stuff and dump the rest in a landfill.

The collection is worth what someone's willing to pay for it. Obviously, it's not worth 3 mil. The main gripe I have is that he insists that he maintain it for the buyer, which means that whoever ends up owning it is under this guys thumb. I'm sure he'd make them sign a contract not to sell any part of his legacy. I don't know if he has children or not, but to make your record collection your greatest legacy seems twisted. He's 68, overweight, with a myriad of health problems. Maybe it's time to stop playing around with records and live out his days without the weight of 1.5 million records weighing him down. As much as I admire his collection, the anxiety and compulsion to maintain and protect it would drive me nuts. I only have about 5500 and sometimes feel they've overtaken my life and screwed up my priorities.

 

Yeah, he can't make money selling music but he won't break up the Big Collection and sell it piece-meal, so that he can make money. So there it sits collecting more dust. Get a clue methinks.

-s1m0n-

 

Exactly. This guy is his own worst enemy. If I were him, I'd rent a convention hall space, put the word out, and stage a series of open sales. People would line up for this stuff. What's the point of hiding everything and then grumbling about slow sales?

 

whatever the word is that is right next to "downright rude" is how that store treated it's customers.

they were absolutely crass and ignorant to some customers, especially younger ones (teens)

and when you wanted to trade in a near-mint copy of the standells "dirty water" it was worth $2.00 in trade, but if you wanted to buy the same LP it was $30.00.+

i believe from my 10 visits there over the years that this man basically put himself out of business.

renny

 

There's a store here in Chicago called Vintage Vinyl. It's more of a museum. They don't like you looking or touching the merchandise and the cheapest record is about $75. They don't really want to sell them. They really just want you to know they have them. This guy seems a lot like that but on steroids.

In my college days, I would go to Vintage Vinyl and browse all the $35-$100 John Cale and Brian Eno records and then go over to 2nd Hand Tunes 4 blocks away and buy the same titles for $3-7.

 

$40k every Saturday by selling records/CDs??? I was in the wrong business back then

 

I used to go to RR multiple times a week back in the eighties when it was in the post office building. They even knew me by name. Back then, it was almost always busy. There were at least 10 customers even when it was slow. Sometimes there would be so many people it was almost impossible to move. I spent a lot of money there. I bought all my new cds there and rented vinyl when he was still doing that. Then he stopped renting vinyl, and he pulled all of the vinyl into the back where no one could go. For all intents and purposes it became a cd store, with decent selection, that also sold vinyl at 5x more expensive than everywhere else. It was still pretty cool back then. I put up with Paul's bad attitude by avoiding him. I talked with his daughter who was really nice. If I was looking for something on vinyl, she would help me.

Then the store moved out of the post office building and into a former nightclub in a third-rate strip mall. The post office building had problems. Sometimes there was no parking. And it could get really tight inside. It seemed like he had room for the collection, but maybe not. However, it was bright, and well decorated. The new location was underground and dark. The location was uninviting. Worse still, the cd selection started to slim down.

I think some of his business problems are due to the industry, but a lot of his problems are due to poor business decisions and customer relations.

 

I believe it. There used to be lines at the checkout that would 20 people deep. Again, that was back in the post office days. He never had that kind of business in the new location.

 

Vintage Vinyl

Yeah, I went there a few times, didn't buy anything - this was back
in the mid-1980's IIRC. Evanston's a little bit out of my way anyhow -
I guess that place isn't on my favorites list!! LOL!!

Just for fun, I sometimes search their inventory online - I've found
LP's at other stores like Reckless(and 2HT that you mentioned) for
$1.99 that VV would be selling for $20 or more.

What John Cale and Brian Eno records would command a $100 price?!?

Bill

 

I believe I've been to this guy's other location in Las Vegas.

 

First pressing of Eno's Before & After Science with all four art prints?

Working backwards LP box set (maybe that doesn't count)?

-s1m0n-

 

I never went to McWhinney's. My friend used to call him McWhiner. In any case, it's not near me, and I heard such consistently bad things about it, I figured I'd probably get in a fight with the guy.

Jerry's is right down the street from me, and he's the nicest guy in the world. I can browse there for hours.

 

I can't believe that joint is still in business. I haven't been there in over 15 years, and obviously, nothing's changed since my last visit.

 

What is the status of Jerry's? He was trying to sell too.

 

That was a few years ago. He's still pricing and selling, pricing and selling. The best, best stuff, he puts up for auction: http://www.jerrysrecords.com/ I think that's helped him stay in business.