Big Lead Sports Bar

2/19/2008

World's Largest Music Collection (From Pittsburgh) is For Sale

Totally off the topic of sports, this interesting little tidbit was found in the inbox today. What's billed as "The World's Greatest Music Collection" is up for sale, and as luck would have it, the owner is right in our own backyard: he's Paul Mawhinney, owner of Pittsburgh's fabled Record-Rama. Legally blind and fighting diabetes, Mahwinney is reluctantly parting with his life's work, setting a goal of March 1 to unload this once-in-a-lifetime stash. The contents of the auction are quite amazing:
From Thomas Edison to American Idol, this is the complete history of the music that shaped and defined five generations. 3 million records and 300,000 CDs containing more than 6 million song titles. It's the undisputed largest collection of recorded music in the world. About half of the recordings are new and never played, and every genre of 20th century music is represented. There are countless rare recordings worth hundreds, or even thousands of dollars each on the collectibles market. Organized and cataloged, the collection is meticulously maintained and housed in a climate-controlled warehouse. The estimated value of this amazing collection is more than $50 million.

Right now, the auction sits at $3 million, with no takers. Mahwinney said that he had an offer of $28.5 million but it fell through. One question: if you win, what do you do with all of those records?

Record Rama

The Greatest Music Collection [info]

The Greatest Music Collection [auction]

Pine record collector selling 'history of music' [Trib]

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