Tag Archives: records

With a starting bid of US $3,000,000.00 this is one crazy eBay auction. Described as “The World’s Greatest Music Collection (3 Million Records, 300,000 CDs, 6 million+ Song Titles)”, you’re ostensibly buying a record store. In an interview, “Paul Mawhinney, owner of the Record Rama Sound Archives in Pittsburgh, Penn., is selling off what he calls “The World’s Greatest Music Collection” — as a whole — with a starting bid price of $3 million US ‘I want the history of American popular music to be available for future generations.’—Paul Mawhinney This is my life’s work,” the 69-year-old music enthusiast told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “I’ve had a lot of people that wanted it, but they didn’t have the right kind of capital.” Looking at the pictures, it looks exactly like the old school record stores I’d seek out when I would be in towns like Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver and LA.  There aren’t many like this anymore, which makes me appreciate my neighborhood Euclid Records all the more.  In the end, what I like about this auction is the seller’s mindset that the music belongs to everyone, and is not just some commodity. “Mawhinney says he’d like the collection to be available to the public, which is a proviso of the sale. “I want the history of American popular music to be available for future generations,” he told The Toronto Star. The buyer is required to either donate the collection or create a public space for people to access it.” It sounds perfect for the Library of Congress, but apparently they didn’t have the funds.