The Record Collection That Got Too Big

It’s tough being a record album collector. Eventually the 20 LP’s you have become 200 LP’s, and you can’t part with any of them. Eventually those 200 LP’s blossom – or multiply – into thousands of pressings. Your wooden shelves strain from the weight of all that vinyl. You start purchasing Discwashers and polypropylene sleeves and special turntables with perfectly balanced tonearms and feather-light styli.

That happened to me.  My collection of LP’s grew to unmanageable levels.  Part of my vinyl addiction was exacerbated by working for the music magazine Goldmine; if I was to interview an artist, I had to go find – and purchase – some of that artist’s collected works.  The album covers would be photographed to run alongside the article; one album would end up autographed, and the rest of the albums went on the shelf.

When I started writing my two record collector’s guides – oh heck, my record collection grew to the point where I purchased the records and never played them.  In 2006, I realized that my collection was getting the better of me, and I had to start selling off the rare ones and giving away the non-rare ones.

I tell that story to elaborate on another story.

Back in 1999, I attended my first induction of the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in Sharon, Pa.  I was working for Goldmine magazine at the time, and my editor at Goldmine, Greg Loescher, was on the Board of Directors for the newly-opened Vocal Hall.  I met several members of classic R&B and doo-wop groups of the past, and made friendships with the Hall operators that have lasted to this day.

During my time in Sharon, Greg wanted to go visit a record store outside of Pittsburgh.  I went along for the ride.  The store was called Record-Rama – they were a Goldmine advertiser, and they had one of the largest collections of vinyl I had ever seen in my life.

Literally.  The owner of the store, Paul Mawhinney, walked me through the Archive. They had millions of records.  And we’re not talking just millions of slabs of vinyl – they had at least one different copy of nearly every record ever produced.

I spoke with Mawhinney and asked him if he had certain records – groups that I knew about but that weren’t necessarily known to the average American consumer.  Did he have “April Sun in Cuba” by Dragon?  Did he have the first Blotto EP?  And did he have, by some sheer stretch of the imagination, a copy of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates’ “Shakin’ All Over?”

Within ten minutes, Mawhinney pulled those very three records out of his collection, which he called the Archive.  I was impressed.  Very impressed.

A few years ago, I was saddened to learn that Record-Rama had to close.  The question now remained – what would happen to the millions of recordings that existed in The Archive?

Mawhinney wanted to sell the entire collection – every record in the Archive – as one big lot, with one big price tag.  For $50 million, you could have your very own record collection!

No takers.

He had previously offered the collection in 1997 to CD Now, who was willing to purchase the lot for $28.5 million and a $100,000-per-year consulting job.  A few weeks later, CD Now was in bankruptcy court and the deal was voided.

He offered to sell the collection to the Library of Congress. Negotiations took place, but eventually the Library of Congress asked if the collection could be donated.  That effectively shut down the negotiation.

He then listed the entire collection on eBay, with a $3 million opening bid.  The highest bid was $3,002,150. A buyer in Ireland won the collection.  A few days later, it turned out the winning bidder was a fraud.

Sadly, the collection is still unsold at this time.  The owner has suffered a stroke, and is legally blind.  Still, he hopes to find a home for his treasures somewhere.

But here’s the problem.  Whatever the final asking price is for the collection – it’s for the ENTIRE collection as one major lot.  It’s not broken up into several different lots or genres.  Nobody can go in and “cherry-pick” the best pressings.  No – if you buy the collection, be prepared to pull up to the warehouse and park your fleet of 18-wheelers and load up the LP’s, 45’s, 78’s and God knows whatever else is in the Record-Rama Archive.

I really wish that Mawhinney would find a buyer for his collection – someone who would be willing to pay a fair price for all the vinyl he’s accumulated over the years.  Whether the buyer is a museum, a private collector, or an archive, how horrible would it be for a man’s livelihood – which lasted for nearly 50 years – to disappear to an unknown fate.

This is the tough part of being a collector of anything – not just vinyl.  The vinyl market crashed ten years ago with the advent of CD’s and Napster and iTunes; and was exacerbated when the national economy turned sour.  You can still buy 45’s and LP’s on occasion, but it’s nowhere near the level of output from the record companies two decades ago.

And in those video clips I posted, it’s hard not to detect the sadness and regret in Mawhinney’s voice – almost as if he has felt that his years of collecting records, both as a historian and as an investment, has turned to naught.