World's Largest Record Collection..

[Spawn67]

Its for sale if interested. Sad story behind it though..

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[emeraldknight47]

Man---that does suck.

[MIB41]

Truly sad...

[warlock664]

Thanks for posting; and I agree, it's very sad to see so little interest in preserving what is such an extensive and important collection of recorded vinyl music. You'd think someone with the financial ability would purchase the collection for the relatively meager amount he's asking ($3 million) and donate it to an organization dedicated to preserving it (a college library, a museum, or some similar institution). Wouldn't it be a tax write-off in that case?

[megoat]

Thanks for posting; and I agree, it's very sad to see so little interest in preserving what is such an extensive and important collection of recorded vinyl music. You'd think someone with the financial ability would purchase the collection for the relatively meager amount he's asking ($3 million) and donate it to an organization dedicated to preserving it (a college library, a museum, or some similar institution). Wouldn't it be a tax write-off in that case?

Why do you think this collection is important? Because Mawhinney says it's so? It's sad the guy is in failing health, but what is also sad is his obvious delusion concerning the value of his collection. He's been trying to sell his collection for a few years now. The truth of the matter is that his collection is filled with A LOT of garbage that nobody wants or cares about. Also, some of the better titles have been cherry picked. Believe me, large collections are purchased ALL THE TIME. If Mawhinney's collection was priced accordingly, it would've sold.....have you seen the $6,000 Creech thread in Auction Watch? Same logic applies here......

[warlock664]

Why do you think this collection is important? Because Mawhinney says it's so? It's sad the guy is in failing health, but what is also sad is his obvious delusion concerning the value of his collection. He's been trying to sell his collection for a few years now. The truth of the matter is that his collection is filled with A LOT of garbage that nobody wants or cares about. Also, some of the better titles have been cherry picked. Believe me, large collections are purchased ALL THE TIME. If Mawhinney's collection was priced accordingly, it would've sold.....have you seen the $6,000 Creech thread in Auction Watch? Same logic applies here......

Well, yes, I guess I was taking him at his word; I assumed the estimated value cited in the video ($50 million) could be corroborated. While I have no illusions that the actual value is anywhere close to that, with 1,000,000 albums and 1,500,000 singles in the collection, I figured $3 million was fair (just over $1 a record). Sure, there's bound to be a bunch of junk in the collection (how many Pat Boone records, I wonder?), but probably a lot of good or rare stuff too (wonder if he has any "Blind Mello Jelly", LOL!).
I just thought it would be nice to see the collection preserved, as vinyl is obviously a largely overlooked format these days. We're obviously never going back to it, as everyone today wants their music downloaded onto their portable mp3 devices ( often illegally). My impressions taken from that (admittedly biased) video is that it hadn't sold due to lack of interest, not lack of importance. That'll teach me; I promise to view such stories with a suspicious attitude in the future!

[4NDR01D]

one thing that needs to be thought about, and coming from a guy with roughly 4000 rekkids in his garage I have some experience with this, is moving, sorting, storing and disposing.

One box of records is friggin heavy enough, so moving 1 million lp's is going to take a really long time, and you would have to hire a staff of movers to do this. as well as multiple heavy duty moving trucks.

It doesn't look like they are sorted by genre. Norther soul, Doo Wop, Psyche all go for some good money, but somebody who collects one genre probably can't be bothered with the others. With so much of the obscure stuff being what's worth the most, you'd have to be pretty focused on one genre or another to really know what's what.

you'd have to have a warehouse like he has to keep everything in,and that would cost a bundle as well.

and lastly, disposing. I'm sure he has a ton of junk that couldn't be given away for free. Andy williams, Perry Como, Roger Williams, Bert Kampfert,
Herb Alpert, sound familiar? It should to anybody who regularly browses thrift shop record bins.
you can't just put out box of box of record at the curb for garbage pick up and since these are toxic it would be hard to burn or dispose at a garbage site.

I feel for the guy though, hard to see a lifelong collection go down the tubes. But he can't take it with him. My best guess is he gets $200,000 for the lot and that person will lose money on the deal.

[Brazoo]

What does "estimated to be worth" mean anyway? It always bugs me when collectors talk that way. If it's unsold for the asking price of 3 million - it's current value is less than 3 million.

[Adam West]

Good point on estimated worth. That's the thing with appraisals. You can always give an estimate of what something is worth but at the end of the day it is always finding the right buyer and seller. I have picked up items on Ebay recently that I think are easily worth double what I paid for it (just seems to be no interest right now) while other items are selling for 4 times what I think they are worth. When I say what I think they are worth...they are both items that I have been collecting for years and have specialized knowledge in both collectibles. I have been collecting and following both for a decade plus and just know values.

[Adam West]

As a side note, I attended an event while on vacation on the Eastern Shore of MD which was sponsored by Dogfish Head Brewery (their brewery is near Rehobeth Beach, DE). I was called Analog A Go-Go and was a combo beer tasting, vinyl swap meet. The beer tasting was great but the swap meet was a bust. I looked through some old vinyls and crazy prices being asked for not very rare albums with beat up dust jackets. I only looked around for 10 minutes tops and then enjoyed the beer tasting.

[megoat]

one thing that needs to be thought about, and coming from a guy with roughly 4000 rekkids in his garage I have some experience with this, is moving, sorting, storing and disposing.

One box of records is friggin heavy enough, so moving 1 million lp's is going to take a really long time, and you would have to hire a staff of movers to do this. as well as multiple heavy duty moving trucks.

I call this "negative value". A lot of records will cost more to move, transport and store than their market value selling price. I recently went and looked at a collection of about 250,000 records crammed in a hoarders house. While the records could've been had for a decent sum--the cost of moving and transporting them would cost as much as the asking price. I declined, because a cursory look through this collection revealed that the majority of the records were garbage. Were there good records too? Yes, but it was too costly to deal with the garbage to make it worth getting the good ones!

It doesn't look like they are sorted by genre. Norther soul, Doo Wop, Psyche all go for some good money, but somebody who collects one genre probably can't be bothered with the others. With so much of the obscure stuff being what's worth the most, you'd have to be pretty focused on one genre or another to really know what's what.

I know for a fact that many of the more interesting obscurities from this collection were cherry picked.

and lastly, disposing. I'm sure he has a ton of junk that couldn't be given away for free. Andy williams, Perry Como, Roger Williams, Bert Kampfert,
Herb Alpert, sound familiar? It should to anybody who regularly browses thrift shop record bins.
you can't just put out box of box of record at the curb for garbage pick up and since these are toxic it would be hard to burn or dispose at a garbage site.

Yes, many records are unsellable at ANY price. Unfortunately the landfill is the only place for them....

There are collections out there that are probably worth 3 million (Joe Bussard's comes to mind), but this ain't one of them.......

[kingdom warrior]

My cousin who's a DJ and is always looking for fresh beats would love going through that collection trying to find new sounds.....one man's Garbage is another mans Gold....and I feel the same you cannot beat the sound of a clean vinyl record on a Great turn table.......

[toys2cool]

you gotta feel for the guy though

[Brazoo]

This might sound cold, but I don't get the tragedy here. He made a living doing what he loved. How many people get to do that?

[Brazoo]

Good point on estimated worth. That's the thing with appraisals. You can always give an estimate of what something is worth but at the end of the day it is always finding the right buyer and seller. I have picked up items on Ebay recently that I think are easily worth double what I paid for it (just seems to be no interest right now) while other items are selling for 4 times what I think they are worth. When I say what I think they are worth...they are both items that I have been collecting for years and have specialized knowledge in both collectibles. I have been collecting and following both for a decade plus and just know values.

You're right, you can estimate value apart from what items sell for at times - especially if you know the timing is off or you know the right buyers or whatever. That's true. It's usually an exception though I think.