inessential musings

Here’s your chance, music lovers, to own the purported “world’s largest record collection” — more than 6 million songs on 3 million records and 300,000 compact discs — being auctioned on eBay with a minimum reserve bid of $3 million.

Paul Mawhinney, the Pittsburgh-based publisher of the Music Master record price guide, started the collection about 50 years ago with a Frankie Lane record. His plan hit a rough patch as the collection passed the 160,000 mark: His wife told him that either he had to go or the records did. He stayed, and the records went into a climate-controlled warehouse.

Mawhinney is seeking a buyer such as “a museum, library, university or charitable foundation” that can keep the whole collection together, saying that “cleverly arranged and displayed, and surrounded by additional cultural memorabilia, the collection could even become a tourist attraction.” That could be especially true in 10 years or so, when only hard-core music fans listen to physical music formats.

More on Mawhinney’s website.

Update on Feb 21, 2008 at 06:21PM by

Doug

Apparently the collection is sold, and for not much more than the reserve — US $3,002,150.00. The seller had said that if no one bid, he would immediately re-list, but it appears there were 6 bidders including the winner.

I hope the collection finds a nice home, but I suspect that it may be worth more broken up than kept together. Hopefully, the news will tell us something about the buyer.