6 million music singles selling on eBay for minimum $3M bid
An astounding music collection of 3.3 million record albums and CDs representing every genre of American music is up for sale on eBay until Thursday evening.
Paul Mawhinney, owner of the Record Rama Sound Archives in Pittsburgh, Penn., is selling off what he calls “The World’s Greatest Music Collection” ó as a whole ó with a starting bid price of $3 million US.
“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.”
Mawhinney wants to sell his collection due to his failing health ó he has diabetes ó as well as a desire to spend more time with his five grandchildren.
The collection contains musical treasures such as an unreleased, untitled Rolling Stones album of early singles ó only 300 copies were made ó as well as 15 copies of the first edition of Elvis’ Christmas Album from 1957.
The majority of the collection is vinyl, with about 300,000 CDs, and includes acetates, eight tracks and LPs in every speed.
$28.5 million offer fell through
Mawhinney almost sold the collection nine years ago, getting an offer of $28.5 million US in 1999 but the deal collapsed when the internet company went bankrupt.
He’s tried to sell it to American institutions, such as the Library of Congress, but to no avail, as funding always seems to fall through.
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. His eBay posting also mentions that there are “many thousands of duplicate copies, which could be sold individually on the collectibles market to recoup a substantial part of the purchase price.”
Mawhinney says more than 80,000 people have visited his eBay page. The auction will be stopped on Thursday, Feb. 21 at 6 p.m. PST. Mawhinney has vowed to re-list should there be no bids.
The seller does have a couple of bonuses for whomever buys the collection.
He’s offering his services for six months to the buyer to help organize the thousands of albums and CDs. In addition, the buyer also inherits more than $100,000 worth of antique recording and listening devices.
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