The Greatest Music Collection Nobody Wants.

MayorBob.

Posted to Music on Fri Aug 22, 2008 at 01:34:26 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Paul Mawhinney would like to free up a bit of shelf space. Actually, he'd like to free up a lot of space -- enough space to store more than 3 million vinyl albums, EPs, and singles totalling 6 million tunes. The 69-year-old Pittsburgh man says what he has is the greatest music collection anywhere. He's had it appraised at (US)$50 million. But he says he'd take $3 million. Unfortunately, he hasn't found anyone willing to pay nearly that much for it.

Mawhinney suffers from diabetes and is legally blind and just wants to get rid of the collection. However, he's run into problems selling it. Back in February, an ebay auction fell through when the winning bidder turned out to be bogus. The entire saga of the declining value of the collection looks like Murphy has been in charge of the sale. Mawhinney's woes include a $28.5 million deal being blown due to the dotcom bubble burst, troubles with his landlord, being stiffed by movie producers, the Library of Congress expressing interest and then losing interest in buying the collection due to budget cutbacks to this latest ebay auction debacle.

Mawhinney created his collection during the time he owned Record-Rama. Every time he got down to a final album in stock, it became an addition to his archive. Close to 40 years of doing this resulted in the collection. It's a collection that music industry insider Ed Salamon calls unparalleled:

"There are a number of collectors throughout the country that maintain archives. But I've never seen anything to compare with what Paul has been able to put together."

Salamon says if Mawhinney hadn't compiled his collection, the music would have been lost to American culture. Mawhinney is still bitter over the way the Library of Congress turned out: "They broke my heart. They broke my spirit. And I told them they could never call me again." And now, after the ebay thing and still nobody expressing interest, Mawhinney says "nobody gives a damn."

What might be lessening the interest is the sheer space requirements for such a collection. That, and the fact that most people collecting music are into digital music and not metric tons of vinyl. But, that doesn't mean the albums, EPs and singles housed in his collection wouldn't have some value. After all, cover art is considered almost like works of art. Even covers which have a Medusa effect when you gaze upon them, have curiosity (if not financial) value. There are even some collectors who are less than sympathetic to Mawhinney and his plight, faulting him for overestimating what the collection is worth and playing loose with the truth about how the music couldn't be found any other way.